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June 30, 2014

Ah, the Trade Winds Blow...

Doesn't it seem as though talking trade with David Price as a key conversation piece has become an annual event, at the midseason non-waiver deadline and in the offseason? Whether the Rays could afford to keep him was always a here today/gone tomorrow proposition, anyway, depending upon the team's fortunes, and for 2014 the Rays seem now to have none.

Nobody's willing to predict a trip to this year's postseason. But even if the Rays are preparing to put paid to 2014 and gaze toward 2015 — Price's final season under Rays control before he hits free agency — the Smart Guys think that, this time, they'll listen and move if anything delicious looks to be coming in a deal for the big left-hander.

That could be the X factor. If you take Jayson Stark's word, and his word is about as good as it gets, officials with a pair of contenders who asked not to be named say there isn't all that much for which to trade as 31 July comes into distant view. About the only thing anyone seems willing to predict, including Stark, is that the Rays would sooner replace the cownose ray in the right field tank with a school of piranha than trade Price anywhere else in the American League East.

Speaking of former Cy Young Award winners, Cliff Lee was showing up on a lot of trade watchers' radars until he fell to an elbow injury in mid-May. That injury plus the money still coming to him (the rest of his $25 million salary this season, every penny owned him for 2015, and a $27 million player option for 2016 that vests if Lee makes a certain number of starts, Wall Street Cheat Sheet reminds us), makes for a ticklish scenario involving teams looking for an ace with the Phillies likely not to go very far this season, either.

Cheat Sheet says there may be some teams willing to spend a bit on behalf of gambling on Lee, who's no stranger to returning from adverse conditions, but one notes as Cheat Sheet does: it may depend upon how much the Phillies would be willing to eat. And, considering the Phillies' current and slightly unexpected hot streak, it may also depend on whether a trading partner has the pieces the Phillies might think they need in the event they get to thinking that, maybe, they do have an outside chance in the desiccated National League East.

(How desiccated? Until the infirmary became their near-second home it looked like the Braves would take it no questions asked. But the Nationals are right on their tails, the Marlins are right on the Nationals' tails, and the Phillies' June heat had them just a few feet behind until a current four-game losing streak. and the Mets — the Mets? — were only five and a half out of first at one point mid-month. That's the Mets who might be going into sell mode but wringing their hands trying to figure out just whom among their touchables is actually sellable. Hint: they have pitching to spare that could bring them commodities not often seen in their silks lately — hitters.)

The Cubs would probably prefer to keep Jeff Samardzija dining in Wrigley. But the right-hander spurned a contract extension believed to be for five years at $60 million. Samardzija is pitching in extremely hard luck this season — how else do you describe a fellow with a 1.21 WHIP and a 2.60 ERA, 90 strikeouts, and a measly 29 walks, but a mere 2-9 won-lost record — but he's considered to have an ace's repertoire and a reasonable signing window for any team that deals for him. He could be had, theoretically, for about $18 million a year, assuming his taker is willing to gamble on dealing for a year and a half of him and negotiating long-term with him during that period.

What the Yankees might not necessarily be willing to deal is Dellin Betances. Or might they?

They're talking about Betances in terms once reserved for Mariano Rivera: Betances's job as the Yankee setup man is being spoken of as though it were The Mariano in 1996 all over again, the year before the Hall of Famer in waiting took over the closing job for keeps. The 15.1 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate is just the opening page. Small wonder Brian Cashman can't keep up with all the calls romancing Betances in a trade, especially since — Masahiro Tanaka aside — the Empire Emeritus needs rotation help desperately.

Samardzija could be one Yankee target. So could Jason Hammel, another Cub, who's having a nice comeback year and looks like a solid number three or number four starter if you don't mind a half-season rental on him. Would the Yankees even think about dangling Betances in a package that brings them Lee? Or would they hold out to get a package that includes a starting pitcher and some infield help?

Which really amounts to whether even the Yankees would be damn fool enough to unload one of the biggest keys to their best feature this season (the bullpen's back end) for a postseason trip. It's not as though such moves are unthinkable in Yankeeworld, but Hal Steinbrenner isn't exactly as hair-trigger as his father was too often.

But Cashman is said to believe they won't succeed this season unless they make an "impact trade" at or around the non-waiver deadline. Several teams — particularly the Angels, who also have a shot at the postseason (they're six games out of first place, behind only the Athletics, in the American League West) — are or will be hunting impact bullpen help, and they have the pieces the injury-riddled Yankees would need for any hope at a 2014 postseason trip.

Put it this way: for all their issues, and we haven't even thought yet of Derek Jeter finally showing his age in his farewell season, this much is true about this year's Yankees — it hasn't kept them from being (at this writing) two games behind the Blue Jays in the American League East. I saw it quoted elsewhere: "It's as if they're congenitally incapable of losing."

Not that the Blue Jays plan to stand pat, seemingly. The skinny as of this writing has them with longing eyes upon the Padres' Chase Headley, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, which cites "multiple baseball sources" affirming that the Jays have talked seriously about the third baseman ... and sent scouts (as did several other unnamed-as-yet teams) to watch Headley as he returned from a herniated disk problem. Headley is seen as prime for a change-of-scenery with Rogers Centre a better park in which to hit than pitcher-particular Petco Park.

For the Jays, Headley may make perfect sense, with third baseman Brett Lawrie on the disabled list for about six weeks, possibly. The drawback for the Padres: Headley's struggles this season, with and without the injury factor, may not deliver top-of-the-line prospects, even if moving him will remove the rest of his $10.25 million 2014 salary from their books. And the Padres, according to the Union-Tribune, are said to be "open for business" on everyone not named Andrew Cashner now that they've pinked general manager Josh Byrnes and sit 11 games out in the National League West.

Elsewhere, the trade winds as of this writing seem to blow accordingly:

Diamondbacks — A source of intrigue since Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa was brought in to be, essentially, the organization's baseball czar. Injuries and injurious pitching have left the Snakes fighting to the last breath with the Padres for control of the NL West basement. The early word: Several D'backs veterans may prove attractive to some contenders, including Brandon McCarthy and Joe Thatcher.

Braves — What was cited above about the Yankees could be said about the Braves and then some: Knock them down, step on their faces, and they still can't seem to lose. One thing the Smart Guys seem to agree upon with the Braves: getting the games to Craig Kimbrel is a royal pain, particularly in the seventh inning. They're likeliest at this writing to be smoking out bullpen help.

Orioles — Right in the thick of the AL East. They look to be hunting bullpen bulls, too ... for now.

Red Sox — They're not even close to out of it just yet. Bringing up Mookie Betts should prove considerable for the offense, but the Olde Towne Team needs to shore up the back end of the rotation. The good news: They have the farm talent to make that happen and wouldn't mind parting with some of it for another postseason run.

White Sox — Watch for the sale. Adam Dunn, Scott Downs, Ronald Belisario, and Gordon Beckham are names thrown around when the subject is White Sox selling ... and bringing in returns for a run in 2015 seems to be the big object.

Reds — The likely target for this struggling offense, since their pitching is holding up rather well: possibly a corner outfielder, probably a shortstop. And the Reds have enough minor league pieces to spare to make it happen if they want it.

Indians — Went from the basement to second place in the AL Central with that hot end-of-May/opening-of-June streak and think they have a postseason run in them. The big issue: rotation consistency. The number one name being yielded up as a possibility for bringing them that help: Justin Masterson.

Rockies — Arguably the National League's number one fun-while-it-lasted team. Their best trade chip: probably closer LaTroy Hawkins, especially with a number of clubs looking for short-term solutions in that role, and Hawkins could bring the Rocks quite a yield in prospects.

Tigers — They're still the team to beat in the AL Central even if they've fallen into funk enough to fall back to a mere two games ahead of the pack. They could be looking for a shortstop rental until Jose Iglesias returns in 2015; they should be looking to tighten up the bullpen — but don't have a lot on the farm with which to do it.

Astros — Don't look now, but the Astros have built a solid new foundation. In a year or two they could be back in the races. Meanwhile, they have veterans to think of moving, and if GM Jeff Luhnow can move them without jeopardizing that coming competitiveness, big points for him and an even better near-future for his team. 2014 won't be their year, but what they do by July's end means the world for the next couple.

Royals — Third base and right field need serious repair if the Royals want to stay in the race in earnest. And since they drained the farm to bag James Shields, they can't afford to let their imaginations fall asleep.

Angels — They've swapped change-of-scenery closers, sending talented but inconsistent Ernesto Frieri to the Pirates for veteran Jason Grilli. They need another impact arm in the rotation, but that, too, will take a little imagination considering the Angel farm is rather pale for the time being. Big advisory, according to a lot of the Smart Guys — don't even think of looking for another bat, the Angels' lumber corps is doing rather nicely when all is said and done.

Dodgers — Talent to burn. Cohesiveness playing hide and seek too often. The bullpen needs a little help; it may come down to either Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, or both, becoming the sacrificial lambs to get that help.

Marlins — Surprising one and all, just about, they're in the thick of the NL East chase. Their number one need: a starting pitcher with Jose Fernandez out with an elbow injury and the bullpen being taxed nigh unto death. Their possible other needs: a catcher to hold the fort in case Jarrod Saltalamacchia's concussion proves a harder recovery, maybe a middle infielder.

Brewers — They could be one club that can afford to stand pat. The Smart Guys still think Rickie Weeks could be trade bait, though.

Twins — Another pleasant surprise, though one that has for now a serious need for another starting pitcher and another infielder or two considering the population of infielders in the Twins' infirmary.

Athletics — Right now the winds say moving ousted closer Jim Johnson in an addition-by-subtraction move and fishing for a second baseman not named Nick Punto or Eric Sogard would be the best moves the A's could make.

Pirates — Gerrit Cole's return to the rotation is big. Shoring up that rotation could be bigger. Fixing a bullpen with a little too much bull in it right now would be the biggest. Especially since the Pirates still have a shot at a wild card.

Giants — They need to plug a hole at second base and solve the ninth inning now that Sergio Romo's lost the closing job. They might do both from within, but the speculation is that Chase Utley is on their radar. Not to mention that they're now said to have a few eyes upon Samardzija.

Mariners — How they're holding at .500 despite an offense that seems to swing with Wiffle Ball bats is anybody's guess. The good news: They have the farm pieces to land a couple of bats in the outfield and at first base.

Cardinals — Their shaky season opening actually shouldn't mean they should be thinking about moving pieces just yet. The question becomes whether they become just panicked enough about Michael Wacha's shoulder stress fracture that they troll for rotation help just in case.

Rangers — Blow up the season right now. The infirmary took care of that, and there's no way the Rangers can add anything to the team as it is without turning their system from parched to desert. The Smart Guys are saying they should be thinking about moving any veterans due for free agency this coming winter with an eye on next season.

Nationals — Bryce Harper is on his way back from the thumb injury. Gio Gonzalez is back in the rotation. The NL East is weak enough for the Nats to make a run at it. Especially if they reach for a little infield depth, which is just about all they really need right this moment.

But always remember Andujar's Law. (Named for Joaquin Andujar, pitcher/human time bomb of the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s, who coined it.) "In baseball, there's just one word: you never know."

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 2:34 PM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2014

2014 NBA Draft Studs and Duds

Coming into the most recent college basketball season, the 2014 NBA Draft promised to be one of the most talent-filled in recent memory. When Duke and Kansas, and Michigan State and Kentucky met at the beginning of the season at the United Center, it was billed as one of the best showcases of talent on one floor in one night in years. As it stands, those four programs stand to claim about a quarter of the first round's 30 picks. Not too shabby at all.

However, the upcoming draft on Thursday doesn't feel like one that has really lived up to the hype. One could call that a disappointment, but the fact remains that it's really hard for 18- and 19-year-olds to look like near-perfect basketball players. That will remain the case for as long as college basketball is played, regardless of how many freshman and sophomores enter the draft.

The lead up to this draft has meant that some players have skyrocketed up the draft board, while others have fallen in relation to where conventional wisdom had them just a couple months ago. While this is a deep draft by historical standards, there will be some players that are busts and others that are fantastic contributors or even all-stars. I project two from each category that are all surefire first-round selections.

Busts

Zach LaVine, UCLA

Every year, there are underclassmen who, when they announce their intentions to forego eligibility and hire an agent, make you sit up and say, "Really? Him?" LaVine, to me, is the epitome of that player.

Now, I should temper that reaction by saying that all kinds of factors go into a player's decision, not just the binary, "picked high or picked low/not at all." But in a perfect world, the decision would come down to if a player belongs in the NBA at that time. And I don't know what about LaVine's production at UCLA makes people think he's ready for the Association.

I don't typically stay up for all the Pac-12 games since I live in the Central time zone, but I saw enough to know that Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams were the two best basketball players on the Bruins. It looks like LaVine could go ahead of both Anderson and Adams in the first round.

Sure, he can jump high and run, but I don't think he can play shooting guard in the NBA, and he doesn't have the basketball acumen yet to be a point guard. Also, look at Draft Express' mock draft with Player Efficiency Ratings. LaVine is just about the least efficient player in the entire draft, including internationals, several of whom already play pro ball.

Elfrid Payton, Louisiana-Lafayette

I don't like writing this at all. I've seen Elfrid Payton play a few times in person during his freshman and sophomore seasons, when his Louisiana-Lafayette team was in the same Sun Belt Conference as North Texas (my alma mater). Payton was a pretty impressive point guard, and definitely the best at his position in that league. I'm also all for the mid-major players.

But the NBA draft is not the Sun Belt, and Payton never struck me as a player that could go in the lottery, unlike fellow Sun Belt contemporary Tony Mitchell (who had such a shambolic sophomore season that he fell out of the first round). He was great as a junior, but lots of amazing mid-major players never touch the NBA, much less the first round.

That's not to say I don't see any future for Payton, but I don't know if he can be a starter in the NBA, what with so many good or great point guards in the league. He has the speed and motor for the association, but he turned the ball over too much in college, and frankly, his lack of outside shooting gives me Ricky Rubio trigger warnings.

Stars

T.J. Warren, N.C. State

I don't think college basketball appreciated what Warren did this season enough. His team relied him to do just about everything on offense and perform on defense. He proceeded to average a shade under 25 points per game and got the Wolfpack to within a meltdown of two NCAA tournament wins. He also connected on nearly 60 percent of his twos for the whole season as a wing player.

Warren's stock has risen from where he was a late first-rounder to a borderline lottery pick, but that almost still seems low given his credentials. His one substantial weakness is that he's not a good long-range shooter. Some say that he isn't a natural three, but that seems like fiction. He's a classic, get-to-the-rim scoring small forward, and the great thing is that he'll probably never be asked to do as much on an NBA team as he was in Raleigh.

Jabari Parker, Duke

Parker always seems to be compared to Carmelo Anthony, and I've tried to come up with a better comparison as I watched the Chicago native throughout his one season at Duke. I ultimately have to defer to Parker himself, who ultimately did compare himself with 'Melo, with the qualifier: "Yeah, I pass."

In Parker, I can't help but see a player who is ready to put up about 15 to 20 points per game on the Bucks or Cavs, about 45 percent from the floor and 30-35 percent from three. After a couple of no-shows early in the conference season for Duke, he was a very consistent shooter and scorer. The same cannot be said for Andrew Wiggins, who struggled much more with his shot and consistency on a team that had a similar level of talent around him as Parker.

The one demonstrable area where Wiggins does have an edge on Parker is defensively. Wiggins' reach and overall uber-athleticism means he's the type of player who could make several All-Defense teams.

But the should-have-been-better Cavs and listless Bucks need a player with the No. 1 or 2 pick need a player to contribute immediately, which is why Parker is certain to go to either team (barring trades). And after last year and the Anthony Bennett debacle, Cleveland can't really afford to pass up the sure thing.

Sports drafts, in a lot of ways, are high-stakes and very educated guesswork. Greg Oden was supposed to be the surest of things coming out of Ohio State for Portland. A mere seven years' later, and after myriad injuries, he's played just 105 games and is a borderline NBA player. But some players are much more likely than others to pan out or fail. In short order, I think the four players above are will show themselves to be big hits or big misses.

Posted by Ross Lancaster at 6:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2014

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 16

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson, winner of three of the last four races, posted a seventh at Sonoma, his 11th top-10 of the year. He is second in the points standings, 20 behind Jeff Gordon.

"I didn't win," Johnson said, "but my rivals are nervous nonetheless. Anytime you say 'Jimmie Johnson' and 'seventh' in the same sentence, people are intimidated, or should I say 'inJimmiedated."

2. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Two weeks after winning at Michigan, Earnhardt posted a third-place finish in the Toyota/SaveMart 350, as Hendrick Motorsports placed all four drivers in the top seven.

"I have to apologize for wrecking Matt Kenseth," Earnhardt said. "I'm pretty sure Matt will accept an apology. Why? Because he's used to 'taking' it."

3. Jeff Gordon — Gordon finished second to Carl Edwards at Sonoma, as Hendrick Motorsports five-race winning streak ended. Gordon leads the Sprint Cup points standings with a 20-point cushion on Jimmie Johnson.

"'I let Edwards get away,'" Gordon said. "That's my Jack Roush impression, not my take on the final lap at Sonoma.

"You may have noticed our new sponsor, Panasonic, on the No. 24 car. For once, a driver can say he's got an 'electronic issue' and it's not a bad thing. Joe Gibbs may put Japanese in the car; Hendrick puts it on it."

4. Carl Edwards — Edwards took the lead with 25 laps to go at Sonoma and held off Jeff Gordon to claim his first road course victory.

"Roush Fenway was shut out at Michigan," Edwards said. "Who would have thought we'd turn things around on a road course. But you can always count on Jack Roush to have something up his sleeve, except new contracts."

5. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski struggled in the Toyota SavMart 350, fighting handling issues all day on his way to a 22nd. He is fifth in the points standings, 68 out of first.

"It was a tough day for the No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford," Keselowski said. "Sadly, though, we needed car parts, not truck parts.

"The car's handling was a nightmare. Nothing we tried worked. One of my pit crewmen made so many wedge adjustments, he developed a wrist injury. Aerodynamically, he's fine, but he will need some carpal tunnel testing."

6. Matt Kenseth — Kenseth was wrecked on lap 74 when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. jumped a curb and rammed the back of Kenseth's No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. Kenseth is currently fourth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 65 out of first.

"When you're surrounded by a pile of useless tires," Kenseth said, "you know you're in trouble, or Hoosier is your tire manufacturer.

"We're losing Home Depot as a sponsor at season's end. I guess that makes them the 'Away Depot.'"

7. Joey Logano — Logano finished 16th at Sonoma on a tough day for Penske Motorsports, as teammate Brad Keselowski managed only a 22nd. Logano is now seventh in the points standings, 97 behind Jeff Gordon.

"Our boss won't be happy," Logano said. "Ask him his opinion of our performance, and he certainly won't 'Roger' that.

"They say Sonoma is wine country, but they also drink beer in this road course haven. I think they make it from 'wheel hops.'"

8. Kevin Harvick — Harvick finished 20th at Sonoma after the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Chevy was collected when Clint Bowyer suffered a flat tire and stopped in the middle of the track.

"I'm not surprised," Harvick said. "From what I hear, 'parking' is an issue at all NASCAR races."

9. Paul Menard — Menard finished fifth at Sonoma, posting his third top-five result of the year.

"In the absence of Kevin Harvick," Menard said, "I've taken over as a leader for Richard Childress Racing. And we haven't missed a beat. That's because we get 'beat' every week."

10. Ryan Newman — Newman finished 11th at Sonoma as Richard Childress Racing teammate Paul Menard took fifth. Newman is eighth in the points standings, 107 out of first.

"Our highest finish this year is a seventh," Newman said, "which we've accomplished three times. I'm not sure if we can win with this car. We lack the speed of the Hendrick engines. It says 'Caterpillar' on my car; it also says 'Caterpillar' on the speedometer."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2014

Not Just Michael Vick

Bobby Douglass rushed for 968 yards in 1972. Randall Cunningham rushed for 942 yards in 1990. Donovan McNabb, Rich Gannon, Daunte Culpepper, Kordell Stewart, Jeff Garcia, and Steve McNair all rushed for over 400 yards in 2000. Michael Vick was a rookie in 2001.

Because it's the slowest part of the offseason, and because Vick is a celebrity, NFL.com made it a major story last week when Vick told ESPN.com that he created the new generation of running quarterbacks like Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson. "I was the guy who started it all. I revolutionized the game. I changed the way it was played in the NFL."

Running quarterbacks have always existed. Until about 1950, quarterback was largely a runner's position, and QBs were really triple-threat tailbacks who could run, throw, or kick. Otto Graham rushed for more touchdowns (44), in a 10-year, 126-game career, than Vick (36) has in 13 seasons and 128 games. Douglass rushed for 968 yards in a 14-game season. Fran Tarkenton rushed for 300 yards seven times, all in 14-game seasons. Sports Illustrated declared, with rather more authority than Vick, that Cunningham revolutionized the game, naming him "The Quarterback for the '90s."

Today's NFL features what feels like an unprecedented wealth of talented young running quarterbacks: Cam Newton, RG3, Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, maybe a few more depending on where you draw the line for running (Andrew Luck), young (Alex Smith), or talented (Geno Smith, Terrelle Pryor). While Vick surely inspired some of those players — NFL.com's Kevin Patra notes that Vick "was the quarterback you picked in Madden" — I would argue that Newton was the one who opened the door for RG3 and company.

In 2011, Newton passed for 4,051 yards and 21 touchdowns, while rushing for 706 yards and another 14 TDs. It was like a light came on for NFL coaches and GMs. College quarterbacks have been running forever, but everyone knew that you couldn't run the option in the NFL. But with more and more schools adopting pro-style offenses, NCAA teams were succeeding with exceptional athletes playing the quarterback position, dual-threat players who could attack defenses with both their arms and their legs. With Newton as an example, numerous teams decided they could use running QBs, as long as those QBs could also pass effectively. Even Tim Tebow may have influenced the trend, since he led the Broncos to a playoff win that season, passing for 316 yards against the Steelers in addition to his running.

Michael Vick was drafted first overall in 2001, but he believes it took a decade for his "revolution" to begin. In the meantime, successful NCAA running QBs like Brad Smith and Matt Jones were moved to other positions, while 2001 Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch never played a down in the NFL. Vick's assertion that "I was the guy who started it all" also ignores a handful of unsuccessful mobile quarterbacks between himself and Newton, players like Vince Young, JaMarcus Russell, and Pat White. How come Vick's revolution didn't start until after Newton's rookie season?

Even if we wanted to trace today's mobile QBs to the early 2000s, what about players like Donovan McNabb and Steve McNair? How can Michael Vick claim, with a straight face, that he "was the guy who started it all?" He comes into a league that already features those two — plus Jeff Blake, Daunte Culpepper, Doug Flutie, Rich Gannon, Jeff Garcia, and Kordell Stewart — and thinks he "revolutionized the game," ignoring the men who opened the door for him. We've known for years now that Michael Vick doesn't perceive reality the way the rest of us do, but this was off the tracks even for him.

I don't doubt that Griffin and Kaepernick played as Vick in Madden when they were growing up, but let's not pretend they became running quarterbacks just because of Mike. Running the option and scrambling played to their strengths. Fast guys with good arms usually play quarterback ... until they get to the NFL. And if that's changed in the last two or three years, it's not because of a 34-year-old who made his NFL debut 13 years ago — it's because Cam Newton and his former offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski proved that mobile QBs, and even the option, can succeed in today's NFL. I'd probably throw some credit toward Kyle Shanahan and Griffin, as well, for their work early in the 2012 season.

Michael Vick is the best pure running quarterback ever, but he didn't revolutionize the game of football, or change the way it is played. For a player with a unique distinction in history, Vick showed an awfully poor grasp of that history.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2014

Living the Game

Earlier this month, ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein broke news that the Miami Heat were discussing adding Carmelo Anthony to their roster through free agency this summer while keeping current stars Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and LeBron James.

With the league's salary cap and luxury tax designed to dissuade star-hoarding, the move would require Miami's three current stars to opt out of their existing contracts and sign reduced (and carefully orchestrated) new ones.

For many, the knee-jerk reaction to the story was disgust. Just four years removed from the Heat sweeping up an entire free agent class of stars, the prospect of adding Anthony to the roster rekindled much of the same disdain. But why?

In 2004, the Lakers were a year removed from a three-peat. That summer, Gary Payton and Karl Malone each left their original NBA organizations after more than a decade, accepting sharp pay-cuts to play with Kobe and Shaq as well as under Phil Jackson. For both veterans, the move seemed a clear grab for a championship ring.

The construction of that 2004 Laker roster was met with some handwringing, but it seemed typical "rich get richer" griping that meets every Yankee or Patriot roster move. But somehow just half a decade later, the Heat faced, and now continue to face, a much different attitude.

To be fair, there are superficial differences. To my recollection, Malone and Payton did not make their first appearance in Los Angeles in a hyped pep rally where they predicted championships by the bushel. And, of course, neither Malone nor Payton chose to inform his original organization of his decision through an ESPN infomercial. But even accounting for the tone-deaf missteps of 2010 doesn't explain the reaction to this month's Anthony rumor.

Instead, the biggest difference between L.A.'s 2004 and Miami's two key offseasons is the appearance of predetermination. NBA rules clearly forbid organizations and players discussing future contracts before the free agent window. And yet, Miami largely gutted its 2009-10 roster to make room for three near-max contracts, a decision that would have looked reckless and foolish in any scenario where Wade, Bosh, and James didn't fill that open salary cap space. When you throw in the trio's time together on the 2008 Olympic team and the fact that Wade's place on the Miami roster made him a motivated conduit to the Heat front office, it doesn't take many leaps of imagination to connect the dots.

But this still doesn't get to the heart of the question: why do fans find this so off-putting? Even if Wade, Bosh, and James had a triple-secret pact to join up in 2010, it would not have impacted previous seasons. Whether they came to this agreement years or days in advance seems irrelevant to the final product fans enjoy, the games. So why do we care?

To even further muddy the question, think about modern NBA front office strategy. Teams have increasingly embraced tanking as the best method for rapid improvement, a tactic employed most obviously by the 76ers in the previous season. As media and fans have become more comfortable with this reality, a clear mandate of roster construction has emerged: Collect superstars by any means necessary.

The double standard held over the Heat stars versus NBA GMs is striking. Organizations are making trades and sitting players with losing games as the secondary, if not primary, goal. This violates the most basic demand every fan has in exchange for his support: If nothing else, try your best!

So clearly, player-constructed superteams are not unpopular because they undermine the league's integrity. Many have suggested disdain for NBA superteams reflects attitudes about labor practices in the United States, but this feels like a self-projected red herring. Most fans seem unlikely to consciously identify the parallels between typical union industries like manufacturing and education with world-class athletes, then equate their beliefs to the issue. No, the opposition to superteams is not a political one; I believe it is one of theater.

Consider the WWE. Like the NBA and other professional sports, it features well-trained athletes completing impressive physical feats within a framework that encourages taking sides. There are big games/matches, championships, referees, and media personalities. And while the outcomes of professional wrestling are understood to be scripted, they are about as unknown to the viewing public as the outcomes of non-scripted sports. Sure, John Cena probably isn't going to lose on Monday Night RAW in the middle of February, but you could say the same about the Spurs hosting Orlando on a random Monday night in February, too.

The obvious difference between the two — predetermined outcomes — is significant, and it explains why the public abhors Miami's collection of stars. Americans faithfully believe in a system where hard work and dedication eventually pay off. This principle shows up in attitudes about social mobility and narratives about our politicians. Think about it: how many stories have you heard about political candidates with humble beginnings either personally or professionally? We value (or at least think we value) a world in which the future is undecided.

In July 2010, and possibly again in July 2014, the Heat stars threatened that premise as it relates to the NBA in two ways. Stephen A. Smith famously reported weeks ahead of the official news that Wade, Bosh, and James going to Miami was a "done deal." The prospect of such an agreement suggested a tangled web of schemes for future partnerships dating who-knows-how-far back. How much of the NBA's future is already decided?

But even more so, this affects the way we consume the NBA. You probably have heard sports business analysts describe televised games as the only "DVR-proof" content around today. There is something about the real-time experience, not merely of the games themselves, but of the off-season as well that we love. Think about the last time your favorite team or player had a major news event like the firing of a coach or commitment of a big recruit. You probably were flooded with text messages from friends or your Twitter or Facebook feed updates aligned to the same topic.

In a way, today's sports are like the premise of the 1997 Michael Douglas movie, "The Game." In the movie, Douglas' character, a successful but jaded businessman, receives a series of instructions and has to endure seemingly dangerous and terrifying events within his life, all of which turn out to be part of a game bought for him by his brother to force Douglas to enjoy life.

Our interest in sports today is similarly integrated into our lives. Any time of day, we can see what players are posting on their social media accounts, and no matter how much free time you have, you can't exhaust the supply of content written and aired about these leagues. Good or bad, we live sports fandom in a different way than fans of other forms of entertainment.

And that is exactly why fans react to superteams like a toddler biting into her first lemon wedge. Even the least sophisticated fan doesn't believe that rosters like Miami's are built during one free agent period. Salary cap space is cleared years in advance, and I don't think it takes a conspiracy theorist to believe informal feeling-out discussions happen months in advance, tampering rules be damned.

Unlike going to the movie theater, following sports happens at all times and during all facets of our daily lives. At some point, the distinction gets blurred and sports become part of our lives.

At the end of "The Game," Douglas' character is driven to suicide by jumping off of a building, through a glass roof, and onto an airbag, safely in the middle of a party with his friends and family. After quickly getting over the initial shock and confusion, he relaxes and enjoys the party, apparently happy to have learned his lesson.

If Miami once again constructs its dream roster this summer by adding a fourth star, fans will not calm down quite so quickly. We've been watching the game too long to accept that it is not real.

Posted by Corrie Trouw at 6:45 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2014

Foul Territory: Cup Supporters

* Ghana-Na-Na, Ghana-Na-Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye, or if the Americans Feel Euphoria, Do the Ghanians Feels Ghana-ria? — The United States beat Ghana 2-1 on Monday on defender John Brooks' header off a corner kick in the 86th minute. Brooks said he dreamed of the winning header two days before the game. On June 26th, the U.S. faces Group G powerhouse Germany, who have encouraged Brooks and the Americans to "keep dreaming."

* If He's Trying to Get a Reduced Suspension, I Give Him a Puncher's Chance, or Goodell Will Be on Him Like White on Rice, or Brown on Nose — Remorse, Ray Rice and his wife met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at league headquarters on Monday. Rice could face a suspension under the league's personal conduct policy for striking his then-fiancee in February. Rice said he wishes to put the incident behind him and concentrate on football. In short, he wants to "elevate" his game, not his wife.

* It Was a "Banner" Day For Rose, as Opposed to a "Banned" Day, or Odds and "Ins," or Charlie Hustler- — Pete Rose served as guest manager for the Bridgeport Bluefish on Monday in the independent Atlantic League. Reportedly, Rose charged $800 to sign the lineup card.

* "Croatch Shots," or They Were Wearing Nil, or I Guess They Should Be in Group "D" — The Croatian men's soccer team boycotted the media after paparazzi photos were published of players bathing nude at the team's training complex in Brazil. Ironically, the Croats later "undressed" Cameroon, beating the Africans 4-0 on Wednesday.

* It's Patently Offensive — The U.S. Patent Office cancelled the Washington Redskins trademarks, deeming the team's nickname "disparaging of Native Americans." Redskins owner Daniel Snyder continues to defend the name, citing "strength, courage, pride, and respect," qualities he sees in the team and Native Americans. Snyder himself maintains a quality inherent in Native Americans — defiance.

* "Whoo-Wee C.K." — Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw no-hit the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday, striking out 15 in L.A.'s 8-0 victory. Kershaw missed a perfect game because of a throwing error by shortstop Hanley Ramirez. After the game, Ramirez was told to "take a walk."

* STD's Will at an All-Time Low in Tallahassee, Because Crabs Will Disappear, or They Love Him in Tallahassee — Jameis Winston's dad said his son will play two more seasons with the Florida State Seminoles. In two years, quarterbacks will be in high demand in the NFL. In other words, it will be a "super market."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 7:10 PM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2014

The Most Interesting Year One Coaches

As Mike Maker was announced as the new head coach at Marist, this year's coaching carousel finally came to a stop.

Like many years, we had some surprising moves, some not-so-shocking choices and some well deserved assistants who have earned their first shot in the top seat. However, five coaching moves this season are really worth keeping an eye on. The situations they entered, the pressure from outside and the immense challenges that some of them face will throw some serious curveballs into the 2014-15 season.

Here's a look at the five newly crowned coaches to watch next season...

Bruce Pearl, Auburn — Obviously, this was the high-profile hire of the silly season. Pearl doesn't have the most sparkling resume when it comes to off the court actions. However, he went to Tennessee and convinced fans to come to Thompson-Boling Arena to cheer for teams other than the ones Pat Summitt led. Pearl is a strong X's and O's guy and should definitely breathe new life into the Auburn program. The challenge is definitely tougher at Auburn than in Knoxville, but there's little doubt Pearl will start winning ways on the Plains.

Donnie Tyndall, Tennessee — Tennessee picked a coach that's coming off a solid tenure at Southern Miss and has a long-term track record of winning. History says Tyndall can win in Knoxville if he can lure solid recruits to wear Vol orange. However, Tyndall has pressure on him from the moment he walked into his first press conference. A contingent of Vol fans are still upset that Pearl was forced out and now is coaching a rival school, so games against the Tigers are going to have to be circled in the same way games against Kentucky are. Want to win the fan base over? Beat Bruce.

Buzz Williams, Virginia Tech — This was as surprising a hire as they get. Leaving Marquette for Virginia Tech doesn't seem like the most logical decision at first glance. However, Williams never was big on the Big East realignment and is embracing a massive challenge to get the Hokies to become an ACC power. Tech fans, while elated, still must realize that building a consistent winner in Blacksburg will take some time. Williams is an energetic motivator that should toughen the Hokies up early while laying a foundation down.

Kelvin Sampson, Houston — The Cougars are taking a major gamble here. There is absolutely no doubt that Sampson can coach. He won big at Oklahoma and he was a winner at Indiana. He can certainly rebuild Houston into a winning program. However, the history of NCAA violations on phone calls to recruits has followed him at each stop. The sanctions that followed dropped Oklahoma's program a notch and really did damage to the Hoosiers. The coach can win but the question will linger will years: has he really learned his lesson?

Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State — This is intriguing mostly because of the timing. Oregon State chose an odd time to fire Craig Robinson, terminating his contract several weeks after the end of the Beavers' season. Ben Howland seemed like the favorite; however, the Beavers convinced Tinkle to leave Missoula instead. Tinkle was a proven winner at Montana and seems unafraid of the challenge he faces in building a winning program in Corvallis. He'll need to be fearless in trying to beat out Oregon and the Washington schools, including Gonzaga, for top Pacific talent.

Posted by Jean Neuberger at 1:38 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2014

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 15

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson took the win at Michigan, snatching his third win in the last four races. It was his first win at Michigan, and is now second in the points standings.

"That's right," Johnson said. "My first win at Michigan. And that just goes to show that you can't underestimate my greatness — in one race, I scored two 'firsts.'

"It was a Happy Father's Day, at least for me. And what a great way to celebrate, with a win. The congratulations have been overwhelming. It's been 'mad props' for the 'glad pops.'"

2. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt finished seventh in the Quicken Loans 400, posting his tenth top-10 result of the year. He is third in the Sprint Cup points standings, 23 behind Jeff Gordon.

"You probably heard I left Ryan Newman at the airport," Earnhardt said. "I call that 'left behind,' and so did Newman, when he told me to kiss a certain butt cheek.

"By the way, Ryan's phone has a new ring tone — Simple Minds' 'Don't You Forget About Me.'"

3. Jeff Gordon — Gordon started second at Michigan and led 36 laps on his way to a sixth at Michigan.

"That's five wins in a row for Hendrick Motorsports," Gordon said, "and sixth on the year. NASCAR hasn't seen a run of dominance like this since Tim Richmond's S&M phase. Here are some interesting ratios: three of four Hendrick drivers have won six of 15 races. And one of four Hendrick drivers is Kasey Kahne."

4. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski finished third at Michigan following two straight runner-up finishes, at Dover and Pocono. He is fifth in the points standings, 47 out of first.

"I won in Las Vegas," Keselowski said, "and haven't won since. I guess it's true what they say: 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.'"

5. Matt Kenseth — Still seeking his first win of the season, Kenseth finished 14th in the Quicken Loans 400.

"I had seven wins last year," Kenseth said, "and didn't win the championship. By that rationale, I'm well on pace to win the Cup this year. At least that's what I keep telling myself. As for now, my 'Victory Circle' is a zero."

6. Joey Logano — Logano started ninth and finished ninth at Michigan, recording his eighth top-10 finish of the year. He moved up two spots in the points standings to seventh, 83 out of first.

"I'd like to wish my dad a Happy Fathers' Day," Logano said. "I'm sure most people at the track feel the same about him as they do about Fathers' Day — they wish he appeared only once a year."

7. Kevin Harvick — Harvick started on the pole at Michigan and finished second to Jimmie Johnson. It was Harvick's fourth runner-up this season, and left him quite irritable.

"Some people say my frustration from four runner-up finishes this year is boiling over," Harvick said. "Well, I would 'second' their opinion."

8. Carl Edwards — Edwards struggled at Michigan, finishing 23rd, one lap down, as Roush Fenway cars failed to crack the top 15. Edwards is now sixth in the points standings, 75 out of first.

"We Roush Fenway drivers consider Michigan our home track," Edwards said. "Ironically, our performance there leaves us home sick."

9. Kyle Larson — Larson finished eight at Michigan, posting his seventh top 10 of the year. He is eighth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 83 out of first.

"My girlfriend and I are expecting a child in December," Larson said. "I'll likely be NASCAR's Rookie of the Year and a father soon. So, as you'd expect for young, up-and-coming superstar driver, things are happening 'fast.'"

10. Ryan Newman — Newman finished 15th in the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan, as Richard Childress Racing teammate Paul Menard took fourth.

"I missed a flight to Michigan because Dale Earnhardt, Jr. just forgot about me," Newman said. "I called Junior and told him I was standing on the runway, waiting for my ride. That joker replied, 'What are you doing? 'Taxi-ing?'"

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2014

2014 NBA Finals Aftermath

This was the greatest sports weekend of 2014. We saw the end of the Stanley Cup Finals, the end of the NBA Finals, the beginning of the World Cup, and the entirety of the U.S. Open golf tournament. We also got dozens of MLB games, UFC 174, and any number of other events a little farther off the radar.

But wait — before we go any further, you should be aware: this column presents more questions than answers, and some of you will surely find that annoying. Proceed or not according to your pleasure, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Despite so many major events across the sporting landscape, I'm going to focus on the NBA Finals, because it presented a lot of interesting questions. The Finals themselves were surprisingly one-sided, with the San Antonio Spurs winning in five games, and by the largest margin of victory in Finals history. The air-conditioning malfunction that caused a minor controversy in Game 1 seems moot after the Spurs controlled the rest of the series so convincingly. So what questions could we possibly have after such a decisive series?

Is Gregg Popovich the greatest coach in NBA history?

My feeling is that Popovich is probably not the best coach in history, but he's certainly in the conversation at this point. On a roster with only one true superstar, the Spurs have posted 17 straight seasons with a winning percentage over .600. They've made the playoffs every year and won five championships. The Spurs have a talented team, and I don't mean to disrespect anyone, but it's just unprecedented for a team with only one real MVP candidate to establish a dynasty. What Pop has created and sustained, a team that overachieves so consistently it doesn't seem like overachieving any more, is remarkably impressive.

Seriously, during the Duncan/Popovich Era, San Antonio's worst record is 50-32, a .610 winning percentage.

Are Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili the best trio of teammates in NBA history?

The Spurs won NBA titles in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and now 2014. Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili were together for four of them, and this year they passed Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most playoff wins ever by a trio of teammates. Are they the best ever? From where I'm sitting, no.

NBA history is full of dominant trios who won multiple titles. The 1980s Celtics featured Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, while the rival Lakers had Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy. The end of Oscar Robertson's career overlapped in Milwaukee with the beginning of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's and Bob Dandridge's, and the 1970-71 Bucks might be the best team in NBA history. From 1968-74, the New York Knicks won two titles with Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, and Dave DeBusschere. Any of them might be the greatest trio of all time. And let's not forget the team that defeated San Antonio in the Finals last year: the Miami Heat, with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh.

For pure talent, I might go with the Bucks, the Heat, or Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman on the Chicago Bulls. But if it's titles you want, look no further than Red Auerbach's Boston Celtics. Bill Russell was the heart of the dynasty, a player similar in many ways to Duncan. He was joined by Bill Sharman (from 1956-61), Bob Cousy (1956-63), Tom Heinsohn (1956-65), Sam Jones (1957-69), and John Havlicek (1962-69). Russell, Cousy, and Heinsohn won eight titles together. Russell, Jones, and Havlicek captured seven NBA championships.

Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili have excelled together for over a decade, and they've won four championships in an era that is more competitive than Russell's. But we've spent the past two weeks raving over what an exceptional team the Spurs are, and it's not just those three players. The Spurs trio isn't as important to the team's success as the Heat's. They're not as important as the heart of the '80s Celtics, or the late '90s Bulls. Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili are one of the best trios we've ever seen, but I don't believe they're at the very top.

Are the Spurs a continuous dynasty?

Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich have won five NBA titles together. I thought the Spurs were a dynasty seven years ago, and it's even more obvious now. But is this the same dynasty that won three titles in five seasons (2003, 2005, 2007)? Is it still a dynasty if you go seven years between championships? The Spurs have been great every season, so you can make the argument. But dynasties are kings, and San Antonio spent six years as princes.

On the other hand, isn't it crazy not to count this year's championship team as part of the Spurs dynasty? It's the same coach and the same three stars. The '07 champs were led by Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili. The 2014 champs were also led by Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili. Both teams were coached by Popovich. But the rest of the roster has changed. The '07 team didn't have Boris Diaw and Danny Green. The '14 team no longer features Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry.

I don't know how I feel about this one, but the question interests me.

If LeBron leaves Miami, were the Heat a dynasty?

Here's every team to appear in four consecutive NBA Finals: the Bill Russell Celtics (1957-66), the Showtime Lakers (1982-85), the Larry Bird Celtics (1984-87), and the Decision-Era Heat (2011-14). The Heat are also one of only eight teams to win back-to-back championships, joining: George Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers, Russell's Celtics, Magic's Lakers, the Bad Boy Pistons, Jordan's Bulls, Hakeem Olajuwon's Houston Rockets, and the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers.

Can a team that only stays together for four years, and only wins two titles, really be a dynasty? Mikan, Russell, Magic, Jordan, and Duncan all won more than twice as many championships as the Heat. Bird's Celtics had the best record in the NBA six times, and won three rings.

I'm skeptical that LeBron will take his talents away from South Beach, but if he does, he'll leave behind an uncertain legacy: a crude, dishonestly engineered might-have-been dynasty that burned bright for a few seasons, but never built anything — a brilliant footnote in the list of basketball's greatest teams.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

Tony Gwynn, RIP: Real

When George F. Will took the plunge from interrupting his customary sociopolitical columns with periodic (and frequent) mash notes to the game he loves to a complete book, the impeccable Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, he sectioned it into studies of the pitcher, the manager, the batter, and the defender. "The Batter" was subtitled "Tony Gwynn's Muscle Memory." Will had in mind Gwynn's mind as well as his arms, wrists, hands, and body.

"Emotionally," Will wrote therein, "he is perfect. Gwynn is an almost unfailingly cheerful man who is almost always trying to be morose. Trying, but failing. He may be the most liked player in baseball. That is because of the radical difference between his amiableness toward others and his severity toward himself. His ability to combine intense competitiveness and agreeableness makes him the antithesis of the best player in history to combine, as Gwynn does, a high batting average and a lot of stolen bases."

Nobody would ever have tried to deny Gwynn — the Hall of Famer who died Monday at 54, following a long, harsh run with assorted mouth cancers he traced directly to using smokeless tobacco — a batting title by playing the infield back deliberately so that a competitor running neck and neck with him could inflate his average on the season's final day by beating out seven straight bunt singles. The St. Louis Browns tried to do Napoleon Lajoie that favor when he was in a dead heat with Ty Cobb in 1910.

Only once in anyone's memory was there any known animosity toward Gwynn. That was in May 1990, when his then-teammate Jack Clark exploded in the clubhouse during a team meeting and thundered, after throwing a Coke against a wall, "The reason why the Padres suck is because Tony Gwynn is a selfish mother." At least Gwynn knew his enemy in that moment. So did haunted pitcher Eric Show, whom Clark also singled out for similar critique. What Gwynn never learned was which teammate (he was convinced the Padres' saying it was an unnamed groundskeeper was an organizational cover-up) broke the arms and legs off a doll in his likeness and hung it by a noose in the clubhouse.

The apparent objections seem now to be somewhere between absurd and surreal. Gwynn was accused (accused, mind you) of bunting with men on base rather than pulling ground balls. Some called it bids to protect his gaudy batting averages. Others might call it trying to take one for the team. Still others thought it harked back to some comments Gwynn had made in the press questioning the Padres' salary structuring and The following spring training, Gwynn himself called it knowing the things he could and couldn't do.

"I'd go to the plate and say, 'Here's a situation where I don't pull the ball off this guy because he's pitching me away, but if I bunt, I'm selfish'," he told Tim Kurkjian, then a Sports Illustrated writer. "So I'd go up there and try to pull, forget about getting a hit, just try to pull. But that's not what I do. I'm a straightaway hitter. People should know if I say I can't do something, then I can't, and respect that. I don't have to answer to anybody on my club who criticized me for my style."

Gwynn also reference the accusation of bunting to shield his average. "I just don't believe," he said, "that you can sit on your average in May."

Gwynn's teammates also never would have deigned to send an enemy batsman a congratulatory telegram on the threshold of beating Gwynn for a batting title. The 1910 Tigers sent Lajoie just that — before American League President Ban Johnson foiled the Browns' Lajoie boost by crediting Cobb with enough extra extra base hits to put him a point ahead to win the title.

This is a player who won several awards honoring not his playing achievements but his humanitarianism. A player who was named to 15 consecutive National League All-Star teams and started every one but three. A player who was practically guaranteed to be on base every time up. Did we mention that, in addition to 209 hits, 92 runs scored, and 52 walks, Gwynn averaged 29 strikeouts per 162 games lifetime? Or that he averaged 109 runs created per 162 lifetime?

After Will published Men at Work, he was taken to task by Yale historian and classicist Donald Kagan in The Public Interest. (Will cheerfully republished Kagan's critique and his own response in Bunts.) Kagan essentially accused Will of denying the game's romance and heroism: "In hard times, however, and all times are in some way hard, we need greater and more potent heroes — to tell us not what all of us can do but what only the best of us can do ... What we need are heroes like [Bernard] Malamud's Roy Hobbs."

Gwynn, whose workmanship at play Will admired as Kagan abhorred it for its lack of heroism, was not without his heroic qualities. In Game 1 of the 1998 World Series, Gwynn squared up the Yankees' David Wells with the game tied 2-2 and one out with two on in the top of the fifth and drove the first service into the upper deck. Gwynn was miserable after the game — not just because his team lost (the Yankees put the game away with a seven-run seventh thanks to a three-run homer and a grand slam off two Padres relievers), but because of the big deal reporters made of his mammoth blast.

"Have they seen me play before?" he asked Tom Verducci, then with Newsday, who'd approached him amiably and praised his restraint under such lame questionings. "It's not like it's the first home run I've ever hit. I've hit a few before and I've hit a few longer than that. Give me a break."

Will tried to do just that: "Kagan finds it antiheroic that Gwynn 'knows his limitations and accepts them' ... Gwynn, unlike Kagan's hero Roy Hobbs, does not perform deeds that are 'magical.' Gwynn is also unlike Hobbs in another way, one that should seize the attention and kindle the empathy of any author of a 'conservative critique': Hobbs is fictional; Gwynn is real."

As real as the smile that only rarely turned into a frown, the genuine love for the game that coursed through even his most stubborn professional activities and adjuncts (his wife carried a video recorder and player with her husband, shooting video incessantly, so he could study and improve not just his own batting techniques but his knowledge of opposing pitchers), and prompted him to jump immediately from the serious work of play to teaching his charges at San Diego State not just to play but to love the game as deeply as he did.

And, a man who hit .349 lifetime with the bases loaded and two out, who hit just about exactly the same whether his team was ahead (.344) or behind (.345), .500 with the bases loaded and nobody out, .353 when the game was late and close, .321 overall with two out and men in scoring position, and .393 in extra innings. Some people might tell you that performances such as that would be their own kind of heroic performances, performed by a smiling craftsman who saw himself as such. A craftsman, that is.

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2014

2014 French Open: Parting Thoughts

Roland Garros ended with two usual characters holding the winning trophies. Ironically, it will remain as one of the most upset-filled Slams in recent memory. Through all the upsets and the unexpected twists, the men's number one and two seeds kept coming to a collision that all tennis fans expected since the beginning of the tournament. On the women's side, once the top three seeds, Williams, Li Na, and Agnieska Radwanska, lost in the early days of the tournament, Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep were the two names that they predicted for the finals before any other name.

No need to go into details of each match, since most tennis fans have either watched them or read about them. It is worth noting, however, that for the first time in many years of worth of Slams (and yes, it's "Slams" and not "Grand Slams," a whole write-up needed for that mistake that keeps getting repeated over and over), the final weekend of the women's draw witnessed as much excitement as the men's, contained more dramatic matches with extremely tight finishes. The semifinals on Thursday — Sharapova vs. Eugenie Bouchard and Halep vs. Andrea Petkovic — undoubtedly provided more thrills for the spectators than the dull Friday of the men's semifinals in which both matches remained sub-par in quality, and above-par in disappointment in terms expectations.

Ernests Gulbis and Novak Djokovic played mediocre tennis for the most part, piling up the unforced errors. Djokovic's physical condition deteriorated as the match went on and Gulbis could not raise his level of play to take advantage of it. The second match between Nadal and Andy Murray went from start to finish at maximum warp speed as Nadal totally outclassed Murray for a one-man-show that lasted one hour and 38 minutes.

On Saturday, Sharapova and Halep brought their "A" games to Philippe Chatrier and provided the crowd, as well as the millions in front of their TV screens, with a spectacle to be remembered for a long time to come. It made me think back to the last three-set final at Roland Garros, some 13 years before Saturday, when Jennifer Capriati confirmed her comeback year that started at the Australian Open with a thrilling victory, 1-6, 6-4, 12-10, over the young newcomer Kim Clijsters of Belgium. It was a high flying period for the WTA with the Williams sisters in the beginning of their dominance, with Capriati and Martina Hingis challenging them, the Belgian duo Clijsters and Justine Henin joining the race and Sharapova getting in the mix in the mid-2000s.

That match on Chatrier between Capriati and Clijsters was the stamp on the envelope that contained the sealed confirmation that WTA was a highly popular product among tennis fans. Around late 2000s, the product got old and stale, with many of the stars who built it, retiring or losing their skills. Yet the new crop of players never managed to take over the few remaining names that kept dominating most tournaments. Saturday's final match was not only a thrill in terms of quality of tennis played but also the stamp that the WTA desperately needed to confirm that it is on its way back. Sharapova may have lifted the winner's trophy, but the fresh crop of players such as Halep, Bouchard, Garbine Muguruza, Ajla Tomljanovic, Sloane Stephens, Caroline Garcia, and few others are not going anywhere, and will stay around for a long time. WTA has a golden opportunity to capitalize on a new, radiant group of players, and it could not have asked for a better Slam final match to launch their product.

The men's final lacked nothing with regards to hype. The two best players in the world met at the highest stage of clay court tennis. The first two sets matched the expectations in quality and competition. Djokovic and Nadal traded blows, with each attempting to gain control over the other's baseline game through aggressive shots. In the first set, Djokovic managed to stay inside the court and push Nadal around. In the second set, Nadal began going for winners much more often and succeeded in taking the middle of the court away from Djokovic.

With the first two sets split, everyone expected a thrill ride the rest of the way. It never happened, due to two things. First, Nadal completely found his rhythm and remained on high gear for the next hour, only to come land from space down to earth for the last few games of the match. Second, Djokovic's physical state rapidly deteriorated from about 4-3 in the second set to 2-0 in the third set, to the point where he began shaking and stretching his legs and arms between points to relax and recover, stretching for balls to avoid extra steps, and as the usual result of fatigue, increasing the number of unforced errors in abundance.

It was only after the middle of the fourth set, when the clouds came and the wind picked up, that Djokovic found a way to get back into the match — and Rafa had a hand in it, too, with a few unexpected unforced errors. Yet, it was too little too late, as Djokovic did not have enough reserve in the tank to match the quality of his tennis from the first set. Nadal remained the king of clay and the number one player in the world, improving on his record of French Open titles and adding a new one to his expanding resume: he is now the only player in tennis to have one at least one Slam title for ten years in a row.

That being said, the stars of the last weekend of this Slam were the women. It was the first time in many years that women's matches outclassed the men's matches in excitement, thrill, and in quality. Unlike in men's matches, there were no ‘empty moments' in the three women's matches of the last weekend, no one-sided shows, and plenty of quality shot making. Unlike in the men's matches, each of the three women's matches remained hard to predict all the way to the very last few points. Roland Garros 2014 was the recipe that the WTA desperately needed: the injection that rejuvenated a stale product.

Posted by Mert Ertunga at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2014

Foul Territory: Sterling, Silver, Gold

* What Now? Does Rex Ryan Have a "Fut" Fetish? — The Portuguese soccer team visited the New York Jets training camp in advance of their friendly match against Ireland on Tuesday. Mark Sanchez kicked the ball around with Portugal's stars, making it the first time he's taken reps with the "starters" in a while.

* Red, White, and Boo, Ne-gate Expectations, or Jurgen-a Lose, Let's Hope He Has a PhD. in Reverse Psychology, or Confidence Booster — U.S. national coach Jurgen Klinsmann said it's "unrealistic" to expect the United States to win the World Cup. Klinsmann emphasized his statement with a chant of "USA — No. One."

* It May Be the Only Way the Jags Can Make a Splash, or Oakland Has the "Black Hole," Jacksonville Has the "Watering Hole" — The Jacksonville Jaguars will have poolside cabanas available in EverBank Stadium for the 2014 season. The team is taking out 9,500 seats in the north end zone and replacing them with a two-level party deck that includes two pools. Common knowledge says the pools are the only thing in the stadium that will be filled.

* If it Works, Does He Get a Feather in His Cap?, He May Not Be "Sitting," But it's Still "Bull" — Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon invited a Seminole medicine man to Tropicana Field in an attempt to break a slump that has left the team with baseball's worst record. It was a brilliant move by Maddon, as it's sure to create "offense."

* Cha-Millionaire, or the Old Man and the "B" — Donald Sterling changed his mind and will pursue a $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver, revoking his support of the sale of the Clippers negotiated by his wife. In a related note, Adam Silver announced the NBA's "All-Defense" team.

* The Position Has Been "Phil-ed" — The New York Knicks named Derek Fisher head coach on Tuesday. Fisher won five NBA titles for the Lakers while playing for current Knicks president Phil Jackson. Reportedly, Fisher turned down an analyst job with the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network. Either way, Fisher is a "yes" man.

* Swing and a Miss-ile, or That's Just Manny Being Manny, or This Certainly Would Have Never Happened to George Brett — Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado was suspended for five games and fined for tossing his bat in Sunday's game against Oakland. Machado is batting .229 for the season, so fortunately, the bat didn't hit anything.

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 2:02 PM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2014

NBA Finals: What Ails You?

As the 2014 NBA Finals approached, things seemed to be falling in place for a classic series. It was the first rematch since the Bulls and Jazz accomplished that feat in 1998. It had the added intrigue of a "5 vs. 3" encounter (San Antonio's fifth against a Miami three-peat). Plus, all of the major participants seemed to be healthier this go-round. However, the first installment of this particular series will be known more for its bizarre finish than anything else.

Lost in the fact that the San Antonio Spurs turned into the NBA Jam version of themselves (they were "On Fire!") late in the fourth quarter was the situation that resulted from the AC system going out. Now, I understand that across the country, folks take to makeshift hoops courts and brave the heat/humidity of July and August for pick-up games all day long. However, when you factor in mid-80s temperatures (outside the arena) and the body heat of nearly 19,000 people, it can get pretty uncomfortable when you're continuously running up and down the court. (That's probably why we haven't seen many incidents of this since the "Heat Game" in 1984.)

The scenario led up to LeBron James' now famed muscle cramps, which left him on the sidelines for the vast majority of the game's final eight minutes. In the few days since, the Internet basically had a conniption fit, the AC at the AT&T Center got fixed, the Heat got the chance to right themselves (and took advantage of it), and "LeBroning" was born. But left in all that aftermath was a scene that will go down among the most unorthodox outcomes due to an injury or illness. Sure, sports is full of those "heroic" moments where someone barely limps around the bases, resets a shoulder between snaps, or skates after getting stitches. I'm pointing out that the NBA Finals' list of incidents just strike me as confounding. How so?

5) 2014 NBA Finals, Game 1 ("The Cramps," for its utter weirdness)

If the Spurs end up winning this series, you may have to point all the way back to the fourth quarter of this contest. Like I said before, the Spurs went bananas from beyond the arc to push away from the Heat. However, not having one of the Association's best defenders on the floor is at least a bit helpful for the opposition.

4) 1997 NBA Finals, Game 5 ("The Flu Game," for its utter brilliance)

Whether Michael Jordan had the flu, food poisoning, or an alien baby growing in his stomach, we may never know. The fact was that His Airness was physically a shell of himself headed into a critical pivot game against Utah. Jordan proved too much for his own anatomic betrayal, finishing the game with 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and a game-high 3 steals. And to top it off, he hit the go-ahead bucket with under 30 seconds to play. The Bulls held on to take a 3-2 lead and, eventually finish off the Jazz in Game 6.

Despite Jordan having better highlights and more grandiose box scores, this is probably the effort that places him as the best the sport has ever seen.

3) 2008 NBA Finals, Game 1 ("The Wheelchair Game," for its sheer over-the-top drama)

What happened to LeBron James last Thursday was weird. But there's no way that beats the Oscar-worthy performance of Paul Pierce six years ago. In the long and historic rivalry of these two franchises, there have been some memorable Finals moments (including the "Heat Game" reference above). However, nothing could have prepared either fanbase or set of alumni for what happened with 6:49 to go in the third quarter.

I remember watching Pierce writhing on the court in pain. I remember him being helped off the floor by his team. I remember the shot of him being wheeled down the hallway toward the locker room. That whole time, I thought it looked bad for him. Then, not two minutes of game time later, here he comes. Not limping, not walking, but skipping back out onto the parquet floor. I assume that the collective jaw of America was at the knees by this point. Pierce would score seven points to close out the third (including the three-pointer that put the Celtics up for good) and total 22 points for the game. But despite getting that elusive title, "The Truth" will forever be linked to that bizarre moment on "The Wheelchair."

2) 1988 NBA Finals, Game 6 ("The Ankle," for its utter fortitude)

Anyone who watched the NBA throughout the 1980s (and I came into that era on the tail end) knows how tough Isiah Thomas was. But his effort against the Lakers in this particular game went above and beyond. Thomas was in a zone through the first two and a-half quarters of the contest. But when he severely rolled his ankle late in the third, the 26 points he had garnered seemed like a small drop in the bucket.

Now, unlike Jordan's brilliance, the ankle injury was much more immediate and unprepared for. And Thomas also didn't leave the game with near the amount of dramatic flair that Pierce did. The Pistons guard returned only 35 seconds (of game time) after heading to the bench. All he did was pour in 11 more points during the third quarter, finish the game with 17 points post-injury, and total 43 points for the contest. This performance might have been the best one to occur under such a painful circumstance (which included a few other physical issues for Thomas) if it weren't for...

1) 1970 NBA Finals, Game 7 ("The Comeback," for its utter inspiration)

This is the gold standard, for basically anything you have to say combining guts and North American professional athletics. The situation, the uncertainty, and the impact of Willis Reed returning to the Knicks' lineup after missing nearly two games made his appearance at the beginning of the ultimate contest all the more captivating.

The Hall-of-Famer made his first two shots, which were the first two buckets of the game. We all know that he didn't make another point after giving his team a 4-0 lead, and he was done playing by late in the second quarter. However, that didn't effect the outcome of the contest, with the Knicks cruising to a 113-99 victory. In the end, it was the lift in his teammate's spirits (and essentially, their play) that made Reed's appearance so legendary.

But then again, that's just the odd side of the NBA Finals, where "You Gotta Be Kidding Me" happens.

Posted by Jonathan Lowe at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 14

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Jimmie Johnson — In search of his third straight win, Johnson finished sixth at Pocono despite an accident on pit road with Marcos Ambrose that left the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet with right-side damage. Johnson now sits fourth in the points standings, 23 behind Jeff Gordon.

"We failed at pulling off the 'triple,'" Johnson said, "as did a certain horse. For this native of El Cajon, 'California Chrome' is what I call my trophy room. I'm a six-time Sprint Cup champion, so, in a sense, I've got two 'triple crowns.' That's what is known as the 'Jimmie Hat.'"

2. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt passed Brad Keselowski with five laps to go and won the Pocono 400. It was Earnhardt's second win this season and first at Pocono's 2.5 mile tri-oval. He is now third in the points standings, 22 behind Jeff Gordon.

"What was that on Keselowski's grill?" Earnhardt said. "I'll tell you. The same thing that's littering the infield of any NASCAR track — white trash.

"Now that's a tough fate to befall a former Sprint Cup title winner. I guess that's what you call a 'paper' champion."

3. Jeff Gordon — Gordon finished eighth at Pocono and regained the Sprint Cup points lead as Matt Kenseth struggled to a 25th-place result. Gordon now leads Kenseth by 16 points.

"That's three straight wins for Hendrick Motorsports," Gordon said, "and five total on the season. Some say Rick Hendrick's deep pockets are the reason we're so dominant. There may be some truth to that. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won because of a white piece of paper. But in most cases, a Hendrick win can be attributed to paper that is green.'"

4. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski led with five laps to go at Pocono, but lost the lead to Dale Earnhardt as Keselowski tried to clear a piece of debris from his grill. It was Keselowski's second runner-up finish in a row, and left him fifth in the points standings, 50 out of first.

"Done in by a piece of paper that surrounds a hot dog," Keselowski said. "In the business, that's called getting 'Vanilla Iced,' because we got served by a 'white wrapper.'

"I was trying to use Danica Patrick as a pick. Just call me 'GoDaddy.com,' because I was trying to exploit her."

5. Matt Kenseth — Kenseth finished a disappointing 25th in the Pocono 400 and remained winless on the year. He dropped out of the top spot in the points standings and is now in second, 16 behind Jeff Gordon.

"Pocono is just not one of my favorite tracks," Kenseth said. "This 'square' doesn't like triangles, and has a hard time finding 'circles,' namely 'Victory.'"

6. Joey Logano — Logano suffered his worst finish of the year, a 40th at Pocono, the result of engine failure with 10 laps to go.

"A hot dog wrapper? A grill?" Logano said. "Sounded like a perfect occasion for some Miller Lite. But it was not to be.

"I'll say it again. NASCAR is safer than the NFL. Why, you ask? Because men of color are just trying to break barriers, not other players."

7. Carl Edwards — Edwards was collected in a late crash initiated when Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch made contact. Edward's day was done on lap 143, and he finished 41st. He is seventh in the points standings, 57 out of first.

"Greg Biffle is set to sign an extension with Roush Fenway," Edwards said. "Biffle's never won a championship in his long tenure here. So, it's no surprise he's not 'going places.'

"Of course, my future here is a lot like a good back flip — up in the air. And speaking of 'hang time,' I don't have any, because none of my teammates want to 'hang' with me.

8. Kevin Harvick — Harvick finished 14th at Pocono, as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won, joining Harvick, Joey Logano, and Jimmie Johnson in the two-win club.

"I can certainly empathize with Brad Keselowski," Harvick said. "I too know what a worthless white piece of paper is. In my case, it was several — when I ripped up my Richard Childress Racing contract."

9. Kyle Busch — Busch came home 12th at Pocono, posting a solid finish despite making contact with Kasey Kahne on lap 142 and losing considerable track position. Busch is sixth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 55 out of first.

"Tough break there for Brad Keselowski," Busch said. "If you've got trash all up in your grill, try some dental floss."

10. Denny Hamlin — Hamlin started on the pole at Pocono and brought home a fourth-place finish, leading the Joe Gibbs Racing charge. He is eighth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 78 out of first.

"Is Carl Edwards headed to Joe Gibbs Racing?" Hamlin said. "On the surface, it seems 'Cousin Carl' would be a great addition to the team. But, let's face it, I'm not the only with who feels no amount of 'kinship' with Edwards."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 9:32 AM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2014

Brien's Song

"[H]ere I was, 11 picks [later], able to get my time in the big leagues," wrote Doug Glanville, outfielder-turned-baseball writer (and a fine one), in the New York Times two years ago, remembering his draft (first round, 1991, to the Cubs) and the number one overall pick therein. "I made my major league debut, earned a multi-year deal, had a locker next to Alex Rodriguez's. [Glanville played for the Rangers for part of 2003.] I try to tell myself that it was because of my better judgment about what risks to take, or my Ivy League opportunities, but comfort does not come. For me, reading about Brien Taylor is haunting."

For a lot of people inside and around baseball, in the run-up to this year's draft and even after high school left-hander Brady Aiken was picked first overall by the Houston Astros,thinking about Brien Taylor remains haunting.

The fact that Taylor sits at this writing in a federal prison, a once-tapered young man who now shows a vague resemblance to Kirby Puckett, awaiting September release, following a conviction for cocaine trafficking in 2012, is slightly more than just another haunt. "[T]he reality that you cannot play anymore shocks you back to life," Glanville wrote. "You hope you have saved enough money, you hope divorce doesn't await you; you certainly don't expect that a jail cell door might close on your freedom."

The reality that Taylor he couldn't play anymore came too soon, too harshly, perhaps too deeply underwritten by the contradiction that doing the right thing cost him something deeper than merely the dream about which Glanville wrote. And we may never know what battered in and out of his mind when, at last, he put his glove and spikes away, returned to his native North Carolina, taking up such work (with UPS, with a beer distributor, then with his father's brickyard) as once seemed unfathomable considering what his pitching talent rewarded him with in the 1991 draft, trying to support his five children, still driving the black Mustang he bought with a small chunk of his bonus.

He was a tall, sinewy-looking left-hander who threw like a howitzer; he was compared frequently enough to Randy Johnson. The worst kept secret in baseball as the 1991 draft approach was that the Yankees — holding the number one pick, hard as it might seem to believe now, thanks to a rebuilding effort in George Steinbrenner's suspended absence (over the Dave Winfield/Howard Spira case) — would move heaven and earth to get this kid. His family might have been dirt poor, but uber-agent Scott Boras helped persuade them to think in terms of Taylor's real baseball value and not as just a down and out family who could be had minimally simply out of gratitude.

Taylor also had the ill-fated Todd Van Poppel to thank for the fortune about to be his. Van Poppel had gone number one in 1990 and landed a $1.25 million signing bonus plus a major league contract. Boras shrewdly evaluated Taylor to be worth $1.5 million without the major league contract. After the family stuck to the script — "We want the value," his mother insisted — Taylor got his $1.5 million and a clear shot at possibly making what became the Core Four (Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada) the Fab Five. (Jeter would go number one in the 1992 draft.) He'd spend 1992 and 1993 striking out 337 hitters in 324.3 innings at the A and AA levels, earning a cult following along the way and possibly making the Yankees salivate over the question of when, not if, Taylor's talent would be married well enough to experienced fundamentals to bring him to the Show.

"He was rough when we got him," says Bill Livesey, the Yankee scouting director in 1991. "The guys in the minor leagues said, 'Geez, he can't hold runners on.' I said, 'Geez, there's never been anybody on.'"

December 18, 1993. Taylor's brother Brenden suffered head injuries in a fistfight against a man with whom he'd tangled in the recent past. Taylor and a cousin went to the man's home to confront him. Taylor himself got into it with the man's friend. He took a swing at the man with his left arm, missed with one punch, and fell. Both Taylor and Boras thought it was no worse than a bruise, until Dr. Frank Jobe — to whom the Yankees sent Taylor — saw what he called the worst-looking rotator cuff injury he had seen yet, completely off the shoulder bone.

At first it seemed the injury and the surgery to repair it would cost Taylor nothing more than the 1994 season. It cost him too much more. His fastball lost eight miles an hour, he couldn't throw his curve ball for strikes, and the strikeout machine turned into a walker, with 54 walks in forty innings pitched. The following spring, with the Yankees planning to send him to AA ball to continue rehorsing, Taylor admitted, "Sometimes I get the ball across the plate, sometimes I feel like I've never held a ball in my life." He'd go to A ball instead, walk 43 in 16 innings. He'd spend the following two seasons becoming a further lost cause until the Yankees finally released him.

"We were roommates in spring training in 1994," Jeter says. "He was a good dude. He was a nice guy, sort of shy from North Carolina. Sometimes one thing goes right, one thing goes wrong and it can change the course of a career. Unfortunately, for him — and for us, as well — he got hurt."

Brief spells in the organizations of the Mariners and the Indians brought no better results. Finally, Taylor left the game in 2000. "We've all been living a passion whose only true inevitability is that it will end," Glanville would write. "Sadly, with Taylor, you feel like he never got started. His career seemed to be forever pointed behind him, to one sliver in time that changed everything. And now it appears that he may have nothing but time, stuck in a future that keeps him in that same tormenting past."

There have been numerous number one picks whose careers short circuited for various reasons. Taylor lost it to an injury suffered doing worse than trying to do right by his brother. You can never stop wondering what else that cost him internally when at last he had to walk away from the game everyone, including perhaps himself, thought he had an above average chance to rule.

"You know what?" Boras says of the pitcher he calls the best high school pitcher he ever saw. "Brien Taylor's arm was so good, he came back from rotator cuff surgery and he still threw over 90 miles per hour, but he was no longer Brien Taylor."

Until his arrest, it became known that Taylor refused to answer his phone if he smelled sportswriters calling. Maybe knowing that he was no longer Brien Taylor eroded him even deeper than that.

From One to Done — Ill-Fated Number One Drafts

Brien Taylor's may be only the saddest of stories involving baseball's number-one draft picks. Here are some others who didn't flower fully for assorted reasons:

STEVE CHILCOTT (catcher, 1966) — He was picked number one by the Mets, infamously, ahead of Reggie Jackson — possibly because the Mets' then-president, George Weiss, was discomfited by Jackson's dating an Hispanic woman at the time. Chilcott had a better than respectable first minor league season, but a shoulder injury finished him before he had a chance to advance.

DAVID CLYDE (pitcher, 1973) — Picked by a Rangers franchise desperate to save itself in Texas, the high school phenom (five no-hitters including a perfect game) was sent to a major league mound practically the minute after he graduated — and won his first two major league starts. The desperate Rangers then refused to farm him out for much-needed seasoning. Too valuable at the box office. Between inexperience and injury, Clyde was a mess. Later tried and failed in two seasons in Cleveland; left the game and eventually worked for his father-in-law's lumber company before becoming a high school pitching coach. Clyde now refers to his baseball career as the classic case of how not to handle young talent.

SHAWN ABNER (outfielder, 1984) — The Mets thought Abner couldn't miss. Except that he did, lumbering through their system for two years before going to San Diego in the package that sent Kevin Mitchell to the Padres in exchange for talented but indifferent Kevin McReynolds. He made a career as a reserve outfielder with a solid glove and a paper bat. A knee injury finished whatever major league career he had.

TODD VAN POPPEL (pitcher, 1990) — Van Poppel's problem was the major league contract he got in hand with that $1.25 million signing bonus: it kept the Athletics from seasoning him properly. Van Poppel proved to be a mediocre major league pitcher at best, though he did put up a season or two as a respectable if nothing fancy middle reliever.

MARK PRIOR (pitcher, 2001) — Two years after his draft, won eighteen games for the Cubs and, with the Cubs five outs from going to the 2003 World Series, threw the pitch Alex Gonzalez mishandled for a booted double play that let the Marlins score eight in the eighth to win the game. Then came the injuries, the further injuries, the comeback attempts, the recriminations over his mechanics and his overworking in '03, and finally his retirement last winter. Prior now works for the Padres' front office.

MATT BUSH (shortstop turned pitcher, 2004) — Hasn't played a game in the Show yet. The bottle wrecked him. Drunken assault once, twice, three times, costing him stints in the Padres, Blue Jays, and Rays organizations. Now sitting in federal prison in a hit-and-run DUI case, scheduled for release in 2016. The victim in the hit-and-run, Tony Tufano, a widowed motorcyclist whose helmet probably saved his life when Bush's car ran over his head, was quoted recently as saying he'd tell this to Bush if given the chance: "Look, you're a young man, it's unfortunate this happened. The good news for both of us is that I'm here. I don't know how good you are. You'll be 30 or 31 when you get out, and that's young as an athlete today. You may have a chance. But if you don't, do something positive."

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 1:37 PM | Comments (0)

June 9, 2014

Stanley Cup Finals: It's the Kings' to Lose

The 2014 NHL playoffs have been one of the better playoffs in recent memory. There have been seven series that reached seven games, only one sweep and only one five game series (both in the first round). There have also been 30 overtime periods in this season's NHL playoffs (17 in the first round, six in the Conference Semifinals, five in the Conference Finals, and two in the Stanley Cup Finals so far). Only one series throughout the playoffs did not have an overtime period — that was the Rangers vs. the Flyers, a seven-game series in the first round.

In my opinion, it simply does not get more exciting than overtime during the NHL playoffs. While March Madness is certainly a contender, you have to deal with an overabundance of timeouts in college basketball as you near the end of the game. In the NHL, it can end at any moment. You have to keep watching. And you can go a full 20 minutes of play without a commercial and that's simply good news.

All that being said, in mid-April, if you had told me your prediction was the Los Angeles Kings (sixth in the Western Conference) versus the New York Rangers (fifth in the Eastern Conference) in the Stanley Cup Finals, I would have bet a lot of money against you. That's not to bemoan the Rangers and the Kings. They are both very good teams, but, well, there were other teams that were more obvious favorites.

In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins looked like rather clear choices to make a run at the Stanley Cup. The Bruins managed 3.1 goals per game, third best in the NHL and only 2.1 goals per game allowed, second best in the NHL. But the Bruins lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in seven games.

Likewise, Pittsburgh dominated the Metropolitan Division. Statistically they were not quite as impressive as the Bruins, but 3.0 goals per game scored and allowing 2.5 goals per game is nothing to sneeze at. Moreover, the Penguins were all domination on the power play, scoring 23.4 percent of the time. And yet, the Penguins lost to the Rangers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in seven games.

The Rangers journey to the Stanley Cup Finals was a grueling one. It took them seven games to beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round. Then it took them another seven games to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins. When they finally left behind the Pennsylvania opponents, they managed to defeat the Montreal Canadiens in only six games.

The Rangers had a good season. They managed 96 points, not as much as they had in 2011-12 (the last full season) where they had 109, tied for the most in the NHL with St. Louis. The Rangers haven't been in the Stanley Cup Finals in 20 years, when they beat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games back in 1994. (Since then, the New Jersey Devils have been in the Finals five times, winning three of those. The Islanders have not appeared since losing in 1984.)

The Rangers were good statistically, but by no means dominant. They were number 18 in the NHL in scoring with 2.6 goals per game. They were much better defensively, fourth in the NHL with 2.3 goals allowed per game. Offensively, they've improved a little bit, but not a ton. Henrik Lundqvist has also been marginally better, but nothing to write home about. They managed to beat good teams to get themselves to the Stanley Cup Final. But I would have never picked them to come out of the Eastern Conference alive.

In March, after the acquisition of Ryan Miller, the St. Louis Blues looked like the team to beat, certainly in the Western Conference. Then the Blues lost their final six games of the season, getting shutout three times and scoring a total of eight goals in eight games during April's regular season. They plummeted in the standings and ended up facing a tough Chicago Blackhawks team that sent the Blues packing, thinking of next season, and in dire need of another goal scorer.

Still in the Western Conference, the Kings looked like the third best team in California. The Ducks and Sharks seemed far more likely to make a run toward the Stanley Cup. The Ducks were the best offensive team in the NHL in 2013-14 scoring 3.2 goals per game. And they were shabby on defense either, allowing just 2.5 goals per game – good for ninth in the NHL. The Sharks had a more balanced approach with 2.9 goals per game — sixth in the NHL; and allowing 2.4 goals per game — fifth in the NHL. Meanwhile the Kings relied entirely on Jonathan Quick's goaltending. The Kings' 2.0 goals per game allowed was the best defensive showing in the NHL. However, their scoring of 2.4 goals per game was among the worst in the NHL. The only teams that were worse? Buffalo, Florida, Vancouver, and New Jersey. None of those teams made the playoffs.

However, in the playoffs, the Kings' offense decided to wake up. In the playoffs they have averaged around 3.5 goals per game. Adding a goal per game when your top goalie only allowed 2.07 goals per game during the regular season sounds like a lot of wins to me. However, Quick has been less than his usual self in the playoffs. In 23 playoff games so far, Quick has one shutout, has allowed one goal four times, two goals six times, three goals four times, four goals five times, five goals twice, and seven goals once. That's eleven games with two or fewer goals and twelve games with three or more goals. That's not what anybody has come to expect from Jonathan Quick.

I think the best way to present the surprise of where the Kings are now is to ask: If I told you Jonathan Quick would allow over 2.8 goals per game, how far would you expect the Kings to get in the playoffs? With their typically dismal offense, I would not have put them past the first round. Indeed, the Kings barely escaped the first round, being down 3-0 to the Sharks in Quick's worse three game span perhaps in his entire career. But the Kings beat the Sharks in seven games. Then they beat the Ducks in seven games – proving who the best team in California really is. Then they beat the Blackhawks in seven games. And now they're up on the Rangers 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals — only two wins away from hoisting the cup of cups.

And I think they'll do it. It's not much of a prediction to say a team up 2-0 will win two of the next five games, but don't forget, the Kings won games one and two at home. They're now traveling to New York and Madison Square Garden for two games against a team with a lot to lose. Winning one of those games is not going to be easy. If the Kings lose both away games, they lose all momentum and the Rangers will have a swift chance to win game five in Los Angeles and win the series in New York in Game 6.

But here's how I think it will go down. The Rangers will win game three, 3-2. The Kings will come back in game four, winning 4-2. This will deflate the Rangers enough so that the Kings will manage to win game five in Los Angeles 3-1.

It's not the ending I would write, but it is the ending I'll predict. An excessively exciting playoffs can only end with a relatively boring final three games of the Stanley Cup Final. What else would you expect from teams you didn't expect to be there in the first place? I hope I'm wrong and we're in for a few more overtimes and another game seven, but I think the Kings are just too feisty for the Rangers. They're scoring a lot of goals on every line and are simply showing that they want it more. Yes, the Kings will hoist Lord Stanley's Cup for the second time in three years — a feat which has not been accomplished since the Detroit Red Wings won back to back championships in 1997 and 1998.

Posted by Andrew Jones at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)

June 6, 2014

Secrets of the 2014 NFL Season

* Aldon Smith inadvertently causes chaos at Los Angeles International Airport, when, while waiting to board a plane, answers a call from Jim Harbaugh's father with the words, "Hi, Jack." Smith is detained, then later jettisoned by the 49ers, only to be picked up off waivers by the Seahawks in a move known as "Baggage Claim."

Smith records 3 sacks in four games for the Seahawks, but is busted for public intoxication in October atop the Space Needle, and is cut. Marshawn Lynch breaks the news on social media, saying Smith is in "Released Mode."

* In his return to Philadelphia as a Redskin, DeSean Jackson torches his former team with an amazing stat line in Washington's 28-20 win. Jackson scores on a long touchdown pass from Robert Griffin, returns a punt 87 yards for a TD, scores on a two-point conversion, passes for 45 yards, and records a tackle. After the game, Eagles coach Chip Kelly labels Jackson a "one man gang."

Jackson's time in Washington sours in the rematch in Philadelphia, where he suffers through a first half with no catches, then demands a renegotiated contract at halftime.

* Colts' owener Jim Irsay completes his rehabilitation program in June, and celebrates with a lavish party catered by super-chef Guy Fieri, with entertainment provided by the Jack Black/Kyle Gass-fronted band "The Controlled Substances."

Roger Goodell, intent on upholding his image as the face on the NFL, makes an appearance, along with his hologram, which the Twitter-sphere cleverly dubs the "Double Standard."

However, Irsay hits rock bottom early in the morning on New Year's Day, when he shows up at Andrew Luck's door, desperate for a bathroom and an electric razor, mumbling some gibberish about Jesus telling him to "lose his 'stache."

The Colts struggle out of the gate, losing three of their first four, and finish the season with a 9-7 record, good enough to win the AFC South over the 8-8 Jaguars.

* Chaos reigns at the ESPN ESPY Awards Show in Los Angeles on July 16th when a wrong turn leaves celebrity e-lister Tara Reid in the same bathroom with Ben Roethlisberger and Colin Kaepernick.

While Roethlisberger and Kaepernick argue over who will guard the door, Reid sneaks escapes through a small window to freedom. Later, after an emotional pitch to SyFy Channel, production begins on a movie chronicling Reid's ordeal. The movie, titled "Two-Headed Mega-Douchebag vs. Ultra Skeezer," premieres nine days later to record ratings.

Kaepernick goes on to a Pro Bowl year, while Roethlisberger and the Steelers struggled to a 7-9 finish in the NFC North.

* The Bills post a 10-6 record, second to the 12-4 Patriots in the AFC East, and earn a wild card playoff berth.

Wide receiver Sammy Watkins leads all rookie receivers with nine touchdown catches, and endears himself to the city of Buffalo with his charity, "Sammy's Jammy's," in which citizens can trade their handguns, no questions asked, for an authentic Watkin's jersey.

* Visitors to the New York Jets official website vote on a nickname for the team's running back tandem of Chris Johnson and Chris Ivory. "Chris X2" leads the voting early until Ivory is hit with a marijuana possession charge in late August, and "Hash and Dash" becomes the runaway winner.

* The Raiders end the year as the most-improved team in the AFC West, going from being the only team not to make the playoffs in 2013 to one of three teams not to make the playoffs in 2014.

The Raiders finish 5-11 as the 12-4 Broncos win the division.

* Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling joins Raiders owner Mark Davis and illusionist Criss Angel for Oakland's October 12th game against the Chargers. Sterling abruptly walks out before the kickoff, castigating Davis for bringing "magic" to the game.

* On October 31st, Johnny Manziel dons a Jets cap and sweater vest and attends several Halloween parties in and around Cleveland as "Johnny Foot Fetish."

Manziel gets his first start on November 2nd after starter Brian Hoyer is sidelined with a nagging hamstring injury. Manziel dazzles in his debut against the Bucs in Tampa, running for a score and leading the Browns on a game-winning, 75-yard drive. After the game, Manziel hooks up with Lil' Wayne, LeBron James, and Justin Bieber and their respective entourages for a late-night cruise on a stolen yacht captained by Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis.

The Coast Guard breaks up the party, but Manziel gets away with a stern reprimand and a talking to from Browns great Jim Brown.

The incident, however, pales in comparison to Manziel's worst decision of the year, when he assumes the passenger seat of Josh Gordon's car for a ride to alleviate Gordon's chronic case of the munchies.

* Disaster strikes on December 6th in Miami, when Ray Rice and his wife Janay Palmer find themselves on the same elevator as Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Solange Knowles.

As Beyonce and Palmer look on, Solange inexplicably attacks Rice, while Jay-Z comes up with the title for his new album, "Elevator Music."

In the following day's game against the Dolphins, Rice rushes for 22 yards on 17 carries before walking off the field at he two-minute warning. Rice is fined $25,000 by the Ravens. However, Rice is soon tabbed in Bud Light's new ad campaign, which spoofs Dos Equis commercials. In it, Rice plays the "Most Disinterested Man in the World," whose catchphrase is "I like my beer just as I like my violence — domestic."

* At the WWE SummerSlam on August 17, Richard Sherman makes an appearance as special guest surprise manager of C.M. Punk, who challenges Jack Swagger, seconded by Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart, for the Intercontinental Title. After an inadvertent chair shot incapacitates the referee, Sherman cleans house, bashing Swagger and the megaphone-wielding Hart with an even bigger, oversized megaphone.

Punk pins Swagger for the title, then turns on Sherman, rendering him unconscious with the "GTS," then introduces Michael Crabtree as his new partner in the new tag team, "The Punks."

Sherman gets the last laugh, as the 49ers win the NFC West but lose to the Seahawks in the divisional round. Seattle's season ends in New Orleans with a 24-22 loss to the Saints in the NFC Championship Game.

* The NFL produces an animated public service video addressing the perils of locker room bullying called "Haze-y With a Chance of Meatheads." The program world-premiers at Miami's Au-Rene Theater, where Dolphins offensive linemen man the red carpet and taunt patrons.

* LeSean McCoy, the self-proclaimed best running back in football, blazes to a fast start, rushing for 1,035 yards in the Eagles first eight games. But, in a lackluster second half to the season, McCoy struggles, and is overtaken by Minnesota's Adrian Peterson. Peterson leads the NFL with 1,435 yards to McCoy's 1,426.

* After a brief stint with the Dolphins, Ed Reed retires and joins the studio for NBC's "Sunday Night Football." Reed partners with Hines Ward for a segment in which Ward diagrams plays while Reed has an imaginary conversation with Ray Lewis. The segment, called "X's, O's, and the U" becomes an instant sensation, and an animated version later finds a home anchoring Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" program.

* Philadelphia wide receiver Riley Cooper creates a firestorm of controversy when he announces on Twitter that he's signed an endorsement deal with Crest Whitening Toothpaste.

After a hasty apology, Cooper pulls out of the deal, but later agrees to serve as spokesman for a local Philadelphia dry cleaning specialty store, "Whites Only."

Cooper leads the Eagles with 50 receptions for 935 yards and 7 touchdowns.

* Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, a Queens, New York native, is selected as ceremonial coin tosser for the Giants November 3rd Monday night home game against the Colts. With allegiances to both teams, Hibbert shows up in a No. 0 Colts jersey, then removes it, revealing a No. 0 Giants jersey underneath. "Monday Night Football's" John Gruden quips, "Double zero's? That sounds like a Hibbert playoff stat line."

Gruden later takes Hibbert under his wing, putting him through the paces as Gruden's Quarterback Camp," with an emphasis on footwork.

* Minnesota's Cordarrelle Patterson, combining the speed of a Randy Moss with the hands of a Cris Carter, leads the NFL in touchdown receptions with 14. The feat is made even more impressive by the fact that the 14 TD passes are thrown by seven different quarterbacks.

The Vikings finish the season 6-10, last in the NFC North, while the Lions win the division with a 10-6 record.

* In a rematch of last year's AFC Championship Game, the Broncos beat the Patriots 17-14 in a snowstorm in Foxboro. Denver goes on to defeat the Saints in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona.

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

June 5, 2014

The Father of U.S. Soccer

U.S. men's soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann raised some eyebrows in a New York Times profile today when he declared the World Cup unwinnable for the Americans in 2014.

“We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet. For us, we have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament. Realistically, it is not possible."

That's probably true, if a bit exaggerated. As much of a thorn Ghana has been in the U.S.'s side over the last two World Cups, the Americans probably do not need "the game of their lives" to defeat them. Further, if defeating national powers is something the U.S. needs the "game of their lives" to accomplish, then they've had many games of their lives over the past dozen years, including a win against Portugal, who the Yanks have drawn again in this World Cup. Soccer is a low-scoring enough sport that strange things can happen, and do all the time.

But Klinsmann's honesty is refreshing and emblematic of the realism Klinsmann approaches as he draws a thick line between where the U.S. team is now and where he wants them to be in the future. Klinsmann knows that in the U.S., the sports lags far behind many others and as a result, a formidable sea change needs to occur to make the United States a world soccer power, and that's exactly where his focus is and what gets him excited.

It's why he boldly and unilaterally left all-everything Landon Donovan off the World Cup squad. I'm not in complete agreement on the decision, and I penned a piece here defending Donovan's sabbatical a couple of years ago, but half the words out of his Donovan's mouth these days are about how he's not a young man anymore, fitness isn't as easy, and he's simply in the twilight of his career. As a player, he doesn't have much left to contribute to the national team in terms of priming them for a future World Cup run where the Americans can really contend.

Sam Borden, the author of the Times piece, made a few odd assertions. He heralds soccer fans as more "patient" than fans of American sports, and that's simply not true. Any pub crawl in Glasgow or message board lurking will demonstrate otherwise, and top brass is even worse. Last year, from May 2013 to April 2014, 12 of 20 clubs in the English Premier League changed managers, and Fulham and Manchester United changed managers twice. It's a similar story in most European leagues, and that sort of impatient turnover is well-nigh unheard-of in U.S. sports.

But there also seems to be a bit of disconnect between what Borden characterizes as Klinsmann's near-contempt for the MLS, while picking ten MLS players for this month's World Cup, up from four in the 2010 World Cup. That might just mean that Klinsmann is more right than we realize that this squad just isn't ready to challenge. I would much prefer to see our players test themselves against the best in Europe. That can produce some odd results, though: Clint Dempsey was dominant in Fulham, and then left Tottenham seemingly as soon as he arrived to return stateside. Jozy Altidore went from being a goal-scoring machine for the U.S. to useless for Hull to a goal-scoring machine for AZ Alkmaar to useless this past season for Sunderland. There is no middle ground with him.

But if the U.S. can beat Ghana and take a point off of either Germany and Portugal — unlikely, but far from impossible — then the knockout round becomes possible. Either way, there is little doubt we have the right man leading the way for the Americans, and a man who the history books will record as the father of U.S. soccer.

Posted by Kevin Beane at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

June 4, 2014

NBA Finals Are the Spurs' For the Taking

The 2014 NBA Finals will feature the first rematch of the previous year's championship series since the Bulls and Jazz met in 1998. And just like in that series, the losing team from the first matchup is trying to stop the defending champions from a historic three-peat, something that's only been done a handful of times in NBA history.

But before the Heat can be crowned among immortals, a question I feel NBA fans should be asking themselves is, "Will the Heat even make this an extended series?"

If you're a Heat fan, you might have just looked at the previous sentence and scoffed. You might even think that suggesting that the two-time defending champions, who also have the best player in the world on their side, might get blown out in a series borders on disrespect.

Think back to last year's finals. Even the most ardent of Heat fans would have to admit that Miami was extremely fortunate to win the last two games of last year's series at home. Just in end-game scenarios, the Heat needed one of the most miraculous shots ever by Ray Allen to fall at the end of Game 6 and for Tim Duncan to miss two shots he's hit a thousand times in his life at the end of Game 7.

Then, ask yourself: are the Heat nearly as good as last year? Are the Spurs improved since then?

The answers should be a resounding no and yes, respectively. And that's why I think the Spurs will only need six games at most to win their fifth title in 16 seasons.

In the 2014 playoffs to this point, I don't think it's a stretch to say that each of San Antonio's three playoff opponents was better than each of Miami's playoff foes after taking Indiana's post All-Star Break meltdown into account. After all, the Spurs' series with Dallas in the first round, which seems like it was in January, went the distance as Dallas played some of the best defense it played all year.

In Game 1 of the East Finals, Indiana took down the Heat by playing a decisive, aggressive brand of half-court offense and flabbergasted Miami with its shotmaking ability. It was probably the Pacers' best performance since before the All-Star Game. In San Antonio, Miami faces a team where such offense is the norm, and not an aberration on the road to an embarrassing elimination.

In the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs faced a challenge many times tougher than anything Miami has come up against in its 12-3 playoff run. When Serge Ibaka unexpectedly returned for the Thunder in Game 3 and scored the first basket of the game on his way to hitting his first six shots of the night, San Antonio found itself against the same Oklahoma City team that had swept them in the regular season.

After blowout wins in Games 3 and 4, the Spurs were staring straight at another 4-2 defeat like in 2012, winning the first two games before dropping the next four. But in Game 5, the Spurs' lineup of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw, and Duncan proved decisive, creating any number of matchup problems for the Thunder.

In Game 6, even with Parker out the entire second half and overtime, and a combination of Cory Joseph, Patty Mills and Ginobili playing the point, San Antonio neutralized Ibaka, and helped keep the ball away from Kevin Durant as much as possible on defense.

Erik Spoelstra is miles ahead of Scott Brooks as an in-game coach, so you had better believe that when San Antonio sets high screens with those lineups as in Game 6, Spoelstra won't make the switches like the ones that saw Derek Fisher guarding Diaw during pivotal Game 6 possessions. But those matchups hint at a larger issue for the Heat.

In each of the Heat's previous matchups, their lack of depth wasn't an issue against Charlotte's limited talent and limited Al Jefferson, Brooklyn's age and defensive issues, and Indiana's more pronounced bench issues. That won't be the case against the Spurs, who played 10 players at least 10 minutes per game and 13 men overall against Oklahoma City.

Nevertheless, there are key x-factors for the Spurs that could help Miami excel instead.

Tiago Splitter was excellent against Dallas, but was less productive against Portland and OKC. If he can give the Spurs offense like he did against the Mavs, Miami's small-ball tactics will be less effective. Kawhi Leonard shut down LeBron James at times during last year's series, and has made even more improvement in the last year. Obviously, Parker's ankle and hamstring need to be as close to 100 percent as possible for the Spurs to be firing on all cylinders.

The 2014 Finals feature the strongest team from the West against their counterparts from the East. While the gap in quality in this finals won't be as wide as the chasm between the two conferences, San Antonio should prevail.

Posted by Ross Lancaster at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 13

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson backed up his win at Charlotte with a dominant win in the FedEx 400 Benefitting Autism Speaks at Dover. Johnson led 272 of 500 laps for his second consecutive win, and guaranteed his spot in the Chase.

"The race was delayed 20 minutes to repair a pothole," Johnson said. "Interestingly enough, I 'cemented' my status as a Sprint Cup favorite.

"That's my ninth win at the Monster Mile. Obviously, that's one monster that doesn't scare me. I like to go fast at Dover. Forget Miles the Monster; I'm the 'Boogie Man' at Dover."

2. Jeff Gordon — Gordon was strong early but faded late to finish 15th at Dover, only his fifth finish outside the top 10 this year. As a result, Gordon fell from the top of the Sprint Cup points standings, and now trails Matt Kenseth by 2.

"What a run by Jimmie Johnson," Gordon said. "He already had the Dover record with eight wins; now it's nine. That's even more than what we've come to expect from Jimmie at the Monster Mile. I guess that's what you call 'Dover-achieving.'"

"How about that loose piece of track in the Monster Mile track? It really took a chunk out of Jamie McMurray's car. I've heard of tires having 'bite;' this time the track did."

3. Matt Kenseth — Kenseth, still in search of his first win of the season, finished third at Dover, earning his series-best 10th top-10 of the year. He assumed the lead in the points standings, and now holds a two-point edge over Jeff Gordon.

"Sure, we're disappointed we didn't win," Kenseth said. "But that was my third consecutive third-place finish, so our attitude is still upbeat and optimistic. And that's the morale of the story."

4. Joey Logano — Logano finished eighth at Dover, his seventh top 10 of the year, as Penske teammate Brad Keselowski took the runner-up spot behind Jimmie Johnson. Logano is now sixth in the points standings, 49 behind Matt Kenseth.

"It was a great weekend for Roger Penske," Logano said. "In addition to our top-10 finishes, Helio Castroneves and Will Power finished 1-2 in Sunday's Indy Dual In Detroit. Most owners drive themselves crazy in search of the kind of success Roger Penske enjoys. So, while Helio is climbing the fence, competing car owners are climbing the walls."

5. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt claimed ninth at Dover, posting his ninth top-10 finish of the year. He is fifth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 34 behind Matt Kenseth.

"After winning the Daytona 500," Earnhardt said, "I'm winless in the last 12 races. That pales in comparison to a 55-race winless streak or a 143-race winless streak. And speaking of 'pails,' I have a bucket list that's yet to be completed.

"You've probably heard about my race car graveyard. Unfortunately, it's not open to the public. In other words, it's a lot like my Sprint Cup championship — no one can see it."

6. Carl Edwards — Edwards finished 14th at Dover as Roush Fenway Racing failed to place a car in the top 10. Edwards is currently third in the points standings, 25 out of first.

"I'm 25 points behind my former teammate Matt Kenseth," Edwards said. "Once, I had an 'arm up' on him; now, he's got a leg up on me."

7. Kevin Harvick — Harvick suffered a flat tire while leading on lap 166 and lost two laps, eventually finishing 17th at Dover, one lap down.

"I'm not sure what caused the flat tire," Harvick said, "but I'm guessing a piece of the track was the culprit. Do I know this for sure? No, but nevertheless, I have 'concrete' evidence."

8. Kyle Busch — Busch's bid for the Trucks, Nationwide, and Sprint Cup sweep at Dover ended when he slammed the wall on lap 124. Busch was done for the day and finished 42nd.

"Clint Bowyer just ran me into the wall," Busch said. "So I chased him around the track. Don't believe me? Check the race results. You'll see next to Bowyer's name, it has 'running.'

"I understand Bowyer's spotter was at fault. So, maybe I jumped the gun a bit when I told Clint to 'watch where he's going.'"

9. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski started on the pole at Dover and finished second, as Penske teammate Joey Logano took eighth. Keselowski is eighth in the points standings, 59 out of first.

"I think NASCAR officials did a pretty good job repairing the pothole at Dover," Keselowski said. "But I think they may have put a little too much cement in the hole. And the No. 2 Miller Lite car agrees when it says 'less filling.'"

10. Denny Hamlin — Hamlin took two tires during the final caution at Dover and powered to a fifth-place finish, his first top-five since winning at Talladega. He is ninth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 84 behind Matt Kenseth,

"I was the only Joe Gibbs driver who wasn't ran into by Clint Bowyer," Hamlin said. "Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? Yes, there is. Don't say this to Clint: 'Go ahead. Make my day worse.'"

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

June 3, 2014

Say No to the NFL's 18-Game Schedule

National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell recently reiterated his intention to institute an 18-game regular season. It's a bad idea.

I understand that an 18-game schedule is inevitable. As professional sports increase in popularity, leagues get bigger, and seasons get longer. The NFL is hugely profitable despite by far the shortest season of the major North American sports leagues. Adding two more games — a 12.5% increase — would make team owners a lot of money. The 18-game schedule is going to happen at some point. But the longer we can delay that, the better. An 18-game regular season would be bad for players, bad for coaches, and bad for fans.

The NFL is a violent league. That's not a criticism, just a statement of fact. The players aren't dirty, and there are rules in place to protect them, but these men are exceptional athletes. NFL games are full of 250-pound men who run the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds. Games are played on artificial turf, played in bad weather, played the day after 3,000-mile flights. Players risk injury every time they take the field, and as athletes get bigger and faster and stronger, those risks only increase.

A new class action lawsuit against the league, by retired players dealing with post-career health problems, made headlines last week. The seriousness of the ongoing problem with concussions and CTE becomes more evident each year. When Commissioner Goodell pushed for an 18-game schedule in 2011, opposition from players forced the Commissioner to abandon the plan. Professional football is hard on players' bodies, and a 16-game season already pushes them to the limit.

This year's Super Bowl between the Seahawks and Broncos drew attention because the top seed in both conferences advanced to the championship. Injuries have become so common that the best teams can't beat the healthy teams. It's not who's the best, it's who's least injured in January. We rarely see the two best teams in the Super Bowl, because they can't make it through the season with all of their top players. If you add two more games, and shorten the offseason by two or three weeks, the number of injuries will increase exponentially. Part of the reason we see fewer dynasties now is because teams that spend an extra month in the playoffs — with more games for players to get injured, and shorter offseasons to recover — are less likely to stay healthy the following season.

Commissioner Goodell believes he can sell an 18-game schedule to the fans, just because it's more football. I think we're smarter than that. I've been a football fan for as long as I can remember. When I was growing up, my grandfather took me to countless games. I collected football cards. I had Dan Marino pajamas. When I was in high school, I started doing my own weekly power rankings and playoff odds. I played college football for two years, until it became apparent that I was better at writing about it than playing.

Today, I watch every Thursday night game, every Monday night game, and three to four games on Sundays. Outside of the season, I watch NFL Films productions and old game tapes, I read football books and the SI Vault, I conduct statistical analyses, I plan my next fantasy football season, I obsess over retired running backs and whether they should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Being a football fan is a defining characteristic of my life, and always has been. I don't want two more games.

Part of the NFL's popularity is its rhythm: Sundays and Monday nights, from September through December, followed by a month of playoffs. Watching every game in the NBA or MLB is almost impossible — a gigantic time commitment. I believe the NFL's popularity is partially derived from the relative ease with which fans can follow the sport. Sixteen Sundays is a time commitment most of us can make. Two more weeks isn't a huge burden, but it does make a difference. At what point does keeping up with the sport start requiring so much commitment that it's not fun any more?

More significantly, when players get injured, the quality of play goes down. By itself, that's a good reason to oppose an expanded regular season. Even players who stay healthy may end up with shorter careers as their nagging problems add up. A longer schedule means more football, but it also means football that won't be as good, and great players who may not sustain long careers. I shudder to think how long the best running backs will last if they have to play 18 games.

We also have a moral responsibility. The CTE thing hasn't affected my love of football ... very much ... yet. The league needs to stop treating concussions as a PR issue and start treating them as a serious health risk. I don't believe we need dramatic rule changes, but the procedures that are supposedly in place need to be consistently enforced, and we need better player education about the dangers of head injuries. An 18-game schedule puts players at risk for not only CTE (which is associated with memory loss, depression, and dementia), but also for knee, back, and neck problems. Hall of Fame running backs should be able to walk unassisted when they're in their 50s. A longer schedule puts the players we admire at risk for serious health problems later in life.

Roger Goodell represents owners, and team owners stand to make a lot of money from an expanded schedule. For the rest of us, it's just not worth it.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 2:06 PM | Comments (0)

June 2, 2014

Counterpoint: Cavs Deserved to Win the Draft Lottery

Last week, the Cleveland Cavaliers defied staggeringly low odds and won the NBA Draft Lottery, finding themselves atop the draft order for the third time in the past four years. Aside from the predictable currents of shock and conspiracy theory, a clear narrative developed that very night: The bungling Cavs — the organization that couldn't win with LeBron James, will get to pick a presumably great player, a gift they do not deserve.

This narrative, however, conveniently omits the logical follow-up question: What should they have done instead? Let's consider three key drivers of the Cavs' current state, including two from last season, and fairly determine whether the organization failed in these opportunities or the opportunities failed the organization.

They've had four top-four picks in the past three drafts. Other than Kyrie Irving, who was a gimme, they've screwed up each.

Looking at "could have had" draft scenarios is always comical, especially when players several picks later are used as possible options. Yes, Tom Brady was passed over 198 times in the 2000 NFL Draft. There are also quite a few people who would have chosen different lottery numbers last night had they known the winning combination. But let's review the Cavs' four lottery picks versus their legitimate alternatives and see just how much they really screwed up.

2011: No. 1, Kyrie Irving — I cannot stress enough how split draft experts were on this pick. Irving, with a Rookie of the Year and All-Star Game MVP on his resume, looks like a no-brainer now, but there was significant momentum for the Cavs to draft Derrick Williams first and use their No. 4 pick (see below) to take another point guard, either Kemba Walker or Brandon Knight. This storyline persisted into the early part of the 2011-12 season, as I distinctly remember sitting in the Maui airport (#Humblebrag) reading tweets about the preseason-opening game between Cleveland and Detroit, pitting Irving against Knight. Former Cavs GM Chris Grant unfairly gets very little credit for this pick, but Irving/Williams was truly one of those Manning/Leaf, all-or-nothing choices that scare the pants off of GMs.

2011: No. 4, Tristan Thompson — This is where the alternatives get fuzzy. After Irving, the other two excellent players from the 2011 lottery were Klay Thompson (No. 11) and Kawhi Leonard (No. 15). Now, I won't completely write off either; many mock drafts had Leonard going comfortably within the top 10 and Thompson's slot is probably close enough for him to have been a realistic consideration. But Thompson and Leonard have both thrived in much better situations than the one they would have arrived to in Cleveland. We're getting into chickens and eggs here, but I don't think either player, Leonard in particular, would look as desirable now had his name been called at No. 4 that night.

Furthermore, for an organization whose front line consisted at that time of whatever part of Anderson Varejao was healthy and nothing else, the need for a big was glaring. The other legitimately interior players taken in that lottery after No. 3: Jonas Valanciunas (10.3 ppg, 8.8 rpg), Bismack Biyombo (4.3, 6.0), and the Morris twins (Marcus: 8.1, 3.5; Markieff: 10.0, 5.1). Thompson's career averages are 10.8 and 8.6. Maybe you like Valanciunas' upside or Markieff Morris' development this past season over Thompson, but three full seasons after this pick, it seems pretty clear Grant's search for an NBA-starter-quality big man in this draft was doomed from the start.

2012: No. 4, Dion Waiters — While Thompson's selection veered somewhat off the draft's expected course, Grant's selection of Waiters turned down a completely unmarked road. But first, let's get the obvious out of the way.

The Cavs passed on eventual Rookie of the Year Damian Lillard, eventually taken at No. 6. This fact should have no bearing on evaluating their draft performance because, a.) It's extremely unlikely Lillard would have been Rookie of the Year while sharing the court with Irving, and b.) Taking a ball-controlling, scoring point guard to complement another ball-controlling, scoring point guard while ignoring all of the other options available makes zero sense. And yet, Grant is casually held accountable for this "miss."

As for the legitimate options, we're only two seasons past this draft, but the lack of impact players beyond Anthony Davis is striking. Had they not taken Waiters, the Cavs reasonably might have considered three other options. Thomas Robinson, taken No. 5 by Sacramento, has been traded twice and is trending directly toward "bust." Harrison Barnes, taken No. 7 by Golden State, has shown flashes of very goodness throughout his college and professional careers, but his 9.3 ppg/1.3 agp/4.1 rpg line pales to Waiters' 15.3/3.0/2.6 line. The advanced metrics suggest the same poor comparison.

Andre Drummond, taken No. 9 by Detroit, may be the second best player from this lottery. Many reports suggested the Cavs considered him, and selecting Waiters over Drummond is probably their biggest black mark over the past three years. With that said, Drummond was considered extremely raw in pre-draft evaluation and clearly represented a high-risk, high-reward proposition. Waiters also carried that high variance tradeoff as a prospect, though to a lesser degree. But if Waiters over Drummond is your scarlet letter sin, were you really that bad?

2013: No. 1, Anthony Bennett — Oh boy, the vultures came out early on this one. Let's be clear: Bennett had an awful rookie season, starting with a summer shoulder injury that saw him arrive in camp out of shape, continuing as he failed to make a field goal through the team's first four games, and alternating DNPs due to injury or coach's (merciful) decision.

With that said, who were the Cavs supposed to take? In a familiar trend, the Cavs had no interest in taking a ball-controlling point guard in eventual Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams. The initial presumptive first pick, Nerlens Noel, is yet to play an NBA game. Alex Len, another popular consideration, averaged 2.0 points in 8.6 minutes per game for Phoenix.

The only possible regret the Cavs might have would be Victor Oladipo, taken No. 2 by Orlando. With that said, Oladipo's Orlando season doesn't really translate to how he would have looked in Cleveland. The Magic used Oladipo has a point guard-leaning combo guard, a role which Oladipo filled with mixed results. In Cleveland, he would have been the third guard used as part of a very undersized three guard look or as the defensive-minded half of a shooting guard platoon. The 2013 Draft's rookie season was stunningly forgettable. Was choosing Bennett first a mistake? Compared to what?

They fired Mike Brown one year into a five-year contract.

To fairly judge Brown's end in Cleveland, we first must consider his beginning.

In some kind of Finance 101 class, you probably heard the term "sunk cost" thrown around. Simply put, a sunk cost is any previous investment that is now basically worthless. Sunk costs are the nasty reminders of old mistakes, and as a result, people inevitably let the pain of those mistakes impact future decisions.

The day the Cavs signed Mike Brown to a five-year, $20 million contract that guaranteed the first four years and part of the fifth, that money was gone. With that in mind, the Cavs' willingness to fire Brown after only one season despite the embarrassment and wasted money is a sign of healthy organizational decision-making. Brown clearly did not fit with the current roster, so replacing him was the only reasonable option.

But still, we now know that in the last four NBA seasons Mike Brown has been fired three times. Only an incompetent organization could have hired him for that third stint, especially considering that same organization is also the one that fired Brown first, right?

Eh, not so fast. Many believed (and continue to believe) Brown's firing from Cleveland in 2010 was in response to a soured relationship with James, who you may remember had a big free agency decision coming up. The Cavs more than anyone know if that was the case, and by rehiring him in the summer of 2013, they essentially acknowledged Brown had been an unlucky pawn in a larger gambit. And for the basketball writers who are quick to giggle at Brown's coaching legacy, let's not forget he was named him the 2009 Coach of the Year by, you know, the basketball writers.

To appreciate what Brown looked like as a coaching candidate in 2013, let's consider the careers of two mystery coaches with similar beginnings. Each coach was 50-32 in each of his first two seasons and spent at least four seasons with one team and part of two seasons with another.

Coach A: 272-138 (.663) with Team 1, 42-29 (.592) with Team 2
Coach B: 100-64 (.610) with Team 1, 181-147 (.552) with Team 2

Coaches A and B were both fired by Team 2 as their winning percentages declined, but both were rehired for a third head coaching position after taking some time off. Coach A is Mike Brown after his dismissal by Kobe Bryant the Lakers. So who is Coach B, the seemingly inferior candidate at the time of his second firing?

Rick Carlisle, who went on to win an NBA Championship in Dallas, his third gig.

In 2013, was Mike Brown a more ridiculous hire than when Dallas brought in Carlise? Hardly.

They signed Andrew Bynum.

We're more than a little separated from last summer when Bynum proved an old basketball axiom, "They will pay you to be tall." A year separated from meaningful basketball, Bynum signed with the Cavs in an apparent buy low opportunity in 2013. And yet, by New Year's Day 2014, Bynum had been banished from the team and was later traded, immediately cut, signed after a lengthy unemployment, then told to stay away from a third team in just one NBA season. A brutal miscalculation by the Cavs, right?

It could have been, but in developing Bynum's contract, the Cavs accounted for this possibility. (Well, to be fair, I don't think anyone could have accounted for the center allegedly shooting every time he touched the ball in an infamous practice session, including beyond half court.) But the Cavs structured Bynum's contract to be only partially guaranteed and opted to use it as the keystone in a deal to land Luol Deng. Disagree with the decision to pursue the playoffs by adding Deng if you want, but the Cavs converted a time-limited asset (their 2013-14 cap space) into an asset with several options (keep Bynum at his full salary, cut him to save part of his salary, trade him to acquire something else). It's not as if the Cavs sacrificed other serious options for the right to babysit a seven-foot man. With Deng almost certain to leave in free agency, the Cavs find themselves more or less where they started from before signing Bynum last summer.

So when you see new commissioner Adam Silver announce Cleveland is on the clock to start June 26th's NBA Draft, quell your sense of injustice. Yes, the organization will have another opportunity to add talent after several previous failures, but this time the opportunity will real.

The Cavs have been a disorganized mess since James left, but considering their alternatives, can you blame them?

Posted by Corrie Trouw at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)